CD Review (The Straits Times, April 2017)

KENNETH HAMILTON

plays RONALD STEVENSON Vol.1

KENNETH HAMILTON, Piano

Prima Facie  PFCD050 / ****1/2

Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015) was one of Scotland's greatest musical treasures, a larger-than-life figure in the mould of Franz Liszt (West Linton near Edinburgh was his Weimar), and musical heir to pianist-composers like Ferruccio Busoni and Percy Grainger. 

Described to be “incapable of writing a genuinely easy piano piece”, this recital album by his disciple Kenneth Hamilton is an excellent introduction to his contrapuntally complex yet accessible style. Not a single note is superfluous or wasted. 

Of the three major works here, best-known is his Peter Grimes Fantasy, where themes from Benjamin Britten's opera are pithily compacted into 8 minutes, much like in Busoni's Carmen Fantasy. Beltane Bonfire, inspired by a Scottish folk festival, is both fugal and virtuosic, a competition showpiece. The monumental Symphonic Elegy For Liszt superficially resembles a Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody, but with distinct Scottish accents.

Stevenson is also shown as an effective miniaturist in his arrangements of Scottish ballads and Elizabethan dances, while his transcriptions of Ivor Novello's We'll Gather Lilacs and Richard Tauber's My Heart And I are so luscious as to be almost decadent. Hamilton cleverly throws in Rachmaninov's own Lilacs just to prove the point. A revelatory and enriching listen beckons.  

DON'T MISS:

MUSICAL PORTRAITS

KENNETH HAMILTON Piano Recital

Tuesday, 18 April 2017

Esplanade Recital Studio, 7.30 pm

Programme includes:

STEVENSON Three Scottish Ballades

CHOPIN  Sonata No.3

ALKAN By the Waters of Babylon

MERRICK-STEVENSON Hebridean Seascape

DEBUSSY L'isle joyeuse

LISZT Deux Legendes

Tickets at $32 available at SISTIC

https://www.sistic.com.sg/events/kenneth0417

Please click on link above to buy tickets.

200 YEARS OF THE PIANO / Kenneth Hamilton Piano Recitals / Review

200 YEARS OF THE PIANO
KENNETH HAMILTON, Piano
Esplanade Recital Studio
Saturday & Monday (31 March & 2 April 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 April 2012 with the title "Piano adventures".

The annual piano recitals in Singapore by Scottish virtuoso Kenneth Hamilton, professor at the University of Birmingham, have taken on an epic quality of late. This year’s offering, spanning over two centuries of piano literature, was shoe-horned into two evenings with a day of rest in between.

Other than a popular Chopin Ballade, there was little concession for familiar music by the “usual suspects”. His overview of this endlessly fascinating subject was instead a survey of evolving piano styles over the epochs. Even the Mozart presented were rarities, beginning with Suite in the Style of Handel, published posthumously with a French overture, fugue and Allemande which acknowledged the past, and a tagged-on Gigue whose unlikely dissonances looked toward the future.

Beethoven’s late A Major Sonata (Op.101) was also atypical in that it seemed to predict the lyricism of Mendelssohn and passion of Schumann. To this rollicking score, Hamilton wrought fistfuls of colours and an over-arching sense of cohesion. The highlight of the first evening was Charles-Valentin Alkan’s transcription of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.20 (left), where both piano and orchestra were fused into an outsized conflation.

This was no longer good old Amadeus but some gothic Frankenstein’s monster with gargantuan cadenzas (the first movement uproariously incorporated Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony) that best exemplified the excesses of the Romantic age. Hamilton’s heroic, no-holds barred account was not one for purists or faint-hearted but manna for the adventurous. One is unlikely to encounter it again for a long time.

The second evening showcased the art of variations and more transcriptions. Brahms used a simple air by the composer of Messiah as the subject for his Handel Variations (Op.24), a lengthy discourse which Hamilton handled with almost disarming facility. Its massive concluding fugue began alarmingly on a furious pace, which he built on with fearless panache and implausible reserves of adrenaline.

In between big works in both recitals were a series of well-chosen transcriptions, familiar and obscure. Brahms and Liszt, Busoni and Rachmaninov, all appeared but it was two gems by the Scotsman Ronald Stevenson, of songs by Ivor Novello and Richard Tauber, which caught the ear. The most modern work was Stevenson’s Heroic Song for Hugh MacDiarmid (1967, left), with its evocation of highland sagas, chants and bagpipes effects.

The final tour de force came in Liszt’s solo version of Totentanz (Dance of Death), essentially variations on the medieval chant Dies Irae. How Hamilton mustered its multitudes of flying notes, crunching chords, stampeding octaves and sweeping glissandi remains in the realm of physicists. The two encores, by Liszt and his son-in-law Hans von Bülow, brought the audience from Hades back to solid earth. From the diabolical to the divine, Hamilton’s piano history lesson and “one man band” has to be experienced to be believed.

What do you call a collection of piano virtuosos? Three of four pianists responsible for the most Singapore premieres of piano works. Kenneth Hamilton (Liszt, Alkan, Ireland, Stevenson) with Albert Tiu (Rachmaninov, Chopin-Godowsky, Barber) and Nicholas Loh (Kapustin, Rzewski). The 4th pianist is Shane Thio (Messiaen, Takemitsu, Ligeti, Schulhoff), who was not at the recital. (Photo courtesy of Prof Lim Mong King)

Note: Kenneth Hamilton's encores were Brahms Intermezzo in A major (Op.118 No.2) on Saturday evening, and Liszt Legend No.2: St Francis de Paul Walking on the Waves and Bülow-Liszt Dante Sonnet on Monday evening.

200 YEARS OF THE PIANO / An Interview with Kenneth Hamilton

200 YEARS OF THE PIANO
Piano Recitals by Kenneth Hamilton
31 March & 2 April 2012 / 7.30 pm

Esplanade Recital Studio

Singapore welcomes back the Scottish virtuoso Kenneth Hamilton, who has over the years presented some of the most interesting and intriguing piano recitals to my knowledge. Not only is his breadth and depth of the piano repertoire astounding, as he is a scholar with the most inquisitive of minds, it is his breath-taking delivery and the inimitable wit which have made his recitals memorable and treasured events. For the first time, he performs over two evenings.

The full programme is available here:

http://www.sistic.com.sg/stix/images/internetcontent/piano0412/doc/200yrs.pdf

As generous as always, Kenneth Hamilton avails himself to yet another exclusive Pianomania interview.

200 years of piano literature encompassed in two recitals. Surely omitting certain works by iconic composers must have been a painful experience. How did you arrive at this final programme?

You are quite right. I simply had to resign myself “with regret” to wholesale omissions. There is no way, after all, that I could have offered an example of everything, even if the recitals had been of a gargantuan, Anton Rubinstein-like length (and that in itself would have been a bad idea—one can have too much even of a good thing). 

So I was basically guided by a few ground-rules: to make sure that the programmes had sufficient variety, while also giving some idea of how writing for the piano had changed over the last two centuries; and only to perform pieces that I myself loved and admired. After all, if the performer isn’t himself enthusiastic about what he is playing, he can hardly expect the audience to be!

We start with Mozart and Beethoven, who were among the first of the great composers to have tried their hands on the pianoforte. Mozart was indifferent to it while Beethoven embraced it with open arms. Do you think that was some turning point in the history and fortunes of the instrument?

Yes, it was a turning point, but motivated more by the development of the instrument itself than anything else. When Mozart grew up, the harpsichord and clavichord were still in general use, and the piano was simply one of a selection of keyboard instruments one could choose to play on. When Beethoven was trained a few decades later, the piano had slowly begun to supplant the other instruments, at least for domestic and concert purposes (let us not forget that Beethoven was also known as an organist in his young days). 

The piano had “won”, if you like, because it was gradually becoming more reliable, more responsive and somewhat louder than before. Of course, it still had a very long way to go. Beethoven was well known for still being unhappy with the state of what he called “a most imperfect instrument”. Still, it was more “perfect” than it had been in Mozart’s day, and that was the turning point. For the first time, the advantages of the piano - sensitivity, a range of dynamics - outweighed the disadvantages.

You have given more than ample playing time to Charles Alkan (1813-1885), who celebrates his bicentenary next year. Just how important and revolutionary was his contribution to the piano, with respect to Chopin and Liszt?

Alkan was a fascinating pianist and composer. I don’t think, however, that his direct influence on keyboard writing was that great, given that his music tended to be relatively little known (even if it had always attracted a clique of influential fans, like Liszt and Hans von Bülow). His indirect influence, on the other hand, was much greater. That was mediated through Ferruccio Busoni. Many aspects of Busoni’s keyboard style - the spacing of scales and figuration two octaves apart, for example, or the chordal technique - are pretty obviously derived from Alkan. And from Busoni we then derive several important aspects of early 20th-century pianism. Alkan at a distance, as it were.

Liszt's Totentanz was inspired by 

the Dance of Death fresco 

by Francesco Traini.

Tell us a little more about Liszt’s Totentanz, which is better known in its orchestral form. It polarises many listeners because it contains both transcendental and vulgar aspects of Liszt’s pianism. What is your take?

Well, the devil was supposed to be a virtuoso (like Paganini), so it is quite appropriate that a musical “dance of death” should be virtuosic! And the virtuoso writing in Totentanz - the implacable, overwhelming piling up of difficulties - is an essential part of the musical expression. It is, to some extent, the horror-film music of the 19th century. They didn’t actually have horror films, of course, but they had Gothic novels and various other macabre art forms. Totentanz is a musical realisation of this sort of thing. It is, in my view one of Liszt’s very best pieces.

It originally did not have much success. It was obviously too “advanced”, novel and shocking for most people. But then in the early 1880s, when Liszt was an old man, some of his pupils began to revive it (Alexander Siloti was the best known of these) and it suddenly became a huge hit with audiences, much to Liszt’s surprise. “I’ve now had my revenge” he said, “for failures of days gone by!” 

Liszt then revised some sections of the piece, and extended some passages in the version for piano and orchestra. These revisions are still often neglected (simply because many pianists don’t know about them), but I’ve added them into Liszt’s solo transcription of the piece that I’ll be playing in Singapore, so to that extent it will be a “new version”.

As for Brahms, was he a better composer for the piano in his youth with his large-scaled Sonatas and Variations, or as a mature sage with his late miniatures Klavierstücke and Intermezzos?

That’s a very pertinent question, especially as I have just played the F minor Sonata (Op.5) in a few concerts in the UK. The early works have many intriguing features, and promises of greatness to come, but they also exhibit some fairly glaring faults, at least in my view. The piano writing is often uncomfortably thick, verging on the stodgy. And a few of the sonata movements are, quite frankly, too long for their material. The slow movement and Scherzo of the F minor Sonata, for example, work very well indeed. 

The outer movements are nevertheless problematic, albeit still interesting to play and to hear once in a while. It was with the Handel Variations (Op.24) that Brahms completely came into his own. That is an unalloyed masterpiece, and most of the later, shorter pieces are also utterly beautiful, and perfectly proportioned. I feel the same way about the two piano concertos, incidentally. The first has some wonderful ideas, but also some pretty tedious stretches. The second is magnificent throughout.

We know you love playing transcriptions. With respect to Ronald Stevenson, Busoni, Liszt, Brahms and Rachmaninov (whom all appear in the programme), what makes successful transcriptions work?

In a good transcription, the piece is reconceived for the piano, not simply transliterated. With the work of the best transcribers, one might think that the music had been written for the piano from the start. The other side of the coin are these truly dreadful vocal score arrangements of operas and oratorios et cetera, some of which are almost unplayable. And of course, the very finest transcriptions also have a “value added” aspect. They highlight some elements of the piece that are perhaps not so obvious in the original, or shed new light on the work in some other way. 

Both Liszt and Busoni had a quite phenomenal ability to reconceive orchestral, operatic, or organ music in terms of the piano. Ronald Stevenson also has this gift. For instance, his arrangement of Richard Tauber’s My Heart and I is more or less a new composition, but one that retains the passion of the original, and adds a bittersweet, nostalgic tinge to it as well. Truly “value-added” indeed.

There was a time when the piano was a necessity in all households, but this has been replaced successively by the radio, television and now personal computers. Do you think someday that the piano will make a glorious comeback?

No, alas, the real glory-days of the piano are over in that sense. We can’t un-invent the CD player, and all the rest. But in fact, one of the most astonishing things is how popular the piano has remained, notwithstanding all the domestic musical rivals that turned up in the last century. The piano, of course, produces live music - and consequently gives the performer and audience a direct contact that they don’t get in many other media. And whether the player is good or bad, he or she is still instrumental in producing the music, rather than simply being a passive recipient from the radio, CD player, or whatever. 

There is something unusually thrilling about being in the presence of live music and that, I think, is one of the reasons why there are still audiences for piano recitals, and why so many people still learn the piano themselves, even if they have no intention of becoming professional players. All in all, the piano is still holding its own pretty well these days, despite the competition!

Kenneth Hamilton was interview by PianoManiac.

THE VIRTUOSO LISZT / Kenneth Hamilton Piano Recital / Review

THE VIRTUOSO LISZT / A LISZT BICENTENARY RECITAL

Kenneth Hamilton, Piano / Esplanade Recital Studio / Monday (18 April 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 April 2011 with the title "Harmony of yin and yang".

Any recital of the piano music of Franz Liszt (1811-1886) will invariably involve a lot of notes. Although the commemoration of the Hungarian-born virtuoso’s bicentenary by Scottish pianist Kenneth Hamilton centred on the showboating aspects of Liszt’s pianism, the quieter and more retiring vistas held the greatest resonance.

It all began with the first four Transcendental Studies, so named because no one save Liszt could play them with authority. Putting aside torturous finger exercises, stampeding chords and octaves, and assorted Paganinisms, it was the third Étude, Paysage (Landscape) with its gradually unfolding melody and gentle harmonic shifts that revealed the master’s prescient genius.

Also underrated was the Berceuse, in its Singapore premiere, which Hamilton shaded with much love and tenderness. “Learn it!” he exhorted the audience, “if you’re bored with Chopin’s Berceuse”, while acknowledging Liszt’s debt to his Polish colleague. Then the cannons and cavalry came out for the mighty Sonata in B minor.

At 27 minutes, Hamilton’s breeze through it might seem brisk, even short-winded. But make no mistake, he was not one to linger on longeurs or find profundities where they do not exist. Instead his straight-speaking manner lent tautness to its elaboration on four simple and unrelated themes. The transformation of one brusque insistent theme into one of Liszt’s most beguiling melodies was a water-to-wine moment, music’s miracle at Cana.

Perfect symmetry was afforded with Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson’s Symphonic Elegy for Liszt (1986) opening the second half. An anti-virtuoso statement, it reflected on the later and darker pages of Liszt’s output, a funeral ode of tolling bells with quotes from the Sonata as viewed through the lenses of Busoni with the occasional glance at Percy Grainger.

With the most serious part of the recital over, Hamilton the spellbinder regaled his listeners with Liszt’s most familiar virtuoso hits. The First Mephisto Waltz with its rapid fire tritones was balanced by the rarely-heard revised version of the popular Soirees de Vienne No.6. Never mind the few missed notes, as the coruscating Second Hungarian Rhapsody with Hamilton’s own glissandi-strewn cadenza brought out the cheers.

As if enacting an act of penance, Hamilton offered the sublime Petrarch Sonnet No.104 as the perfect encore. At once, the yin and yang of Liszt’s Janus-like personality was in perfect harmony.

The world's slowest Hungarian Rhapsody ever?