CHOPIN – The Two Photographs This evening sees the first in a series of 11 concerts spread over 12 months in which the British pianist Warren Mailley-Smith will play the entire solo works of Frédéric Chopin in St John’s Smith Square. It’s a mammoth undertaking for any pianist and Warren has asked me to give a…
WHEN HE WHO ADORES THEE – MARGARET BURKE SHERIDAN There are some recordings you hear for the first time which stop you in your tracks. Something about the music and / or the performance just hits you in the emotional solar plexus – and you find your eyes burning. It takes you by surprise. Your…
KIRILL GERSTEIN Wigmore Hall recital Thursday 14 May 2015 I’ve not been going to many piano recitals recently. Too often in the past year or so I’ve traipsed into London full of eager anticipation, an interesting programme promised, an exciting talent on offer – and I’ve come away underwhelmed, undernourished and generally disappointed. This is…
JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS Cole Porter The song is best known from its appearance in the 1960 film Can-Can when it was sung by Maurice Chevalier, but it was originally written by Cole Porter for the 1935 musical Jubilee. The title, however, goes back further: Porter wrote a song with this title for the 1930…
IVO THE DIVO I did something last night that I have only ever done once before: I walked out of a piano recital at the interval. If I hadn’t been sitting in the middle of Row K at the Royal Festival Hall I’d have walked out sooner. This was the much-heralded return to the venue…
The Art of the Encore The formal programme is complete, the audience is on its feet clapping and cheering and, after the second or third return to the platform to acknowledge the applause, our soloist indicates that he / she is going to play something more. A brief pantomime follows: An encore? Really? Me?…
One of the first CD booklets I wrote was at the behest of the late lamented Ted Perry. It was for volume 1 of a new series on his Hyperion label called The Romantic Piano Concerto (Piers Lane playing Moszkowski’s and Paderewski’s concertos). That was in 1991. I have written several others for Hyperion in…
KHATIA BUNIATISHVILI at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, 4 June 2014 The Georgian pianist, now 26, is, let us say, very pleasing to the eye. Last night she gave us a shimmering, figure-hugging, full-length silver gown. With that mop of black hair and trademark carmine lips, Khatia Buniatishvili cuts a charismatic figure. You can’t teach stage…
Apparently there is another Football World Cup about to take place. Being a follower of the oval rather than round ball, I shall be getting in a few rental films over the next weeks to avoid the inevitable wall-to-wall coverage, and not see much of the action until England meet Germany in the quarter-finals for…
The Royal Festival Hall’s mighty Harrison & Harrison organ has not been heard at full throttle since 2005. It was taken out of action for two years when the Hall’s acoustics were refurbished since when only one-third of the instrument has been operational. First installed in 1954 (it took four years to build), it was…