Martín García García - IKIF

26th International Keyboard Institute and Festival
Merkin Hall, New York

July 12th, 2024

Chopin: Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-Flat Major, Op. 61
Chopin: Impromptu No. 3 in G-Flat Major, Op. 51
Chopin: Impromptu No. 1 in A-Flat Major, 29
Chopin: Impromptu No. 2 in F-Sharp Major, Op. 36
Chopin: Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor, Op. Posth. 66
Chopin: Sonata No. 1 in C minor, Op. 4
Mompou: Variations on a Theme by Chopin
Albéniz: La Vega
Albéniz: El Polo from Iberia (Book III)
Albéniz: Lavapiés from Iberia (Book III)

Martín García García is an exciting young Spanish pianist whose recital at the Festival two years ago made a sensation. By now he has played more than 80 concerts worldwide (in Europe, Asia and the United States). He has also won some big prizes, including Gold at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, and Third Prize and Special Award for the Best Concerto Performance at the 2021 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw.

As he began the Chopin Polonaise-Fantaisie I had a feeling I get once in awhile at concerts, ie if his playing is this good, and this interesting, I'll probably like the way he does everything else! And that was largely true. After the strong opening chords, he took time to play the following quasi-recitativo notes slowly, not pro forma. There was gentleness, and sensitivity to harmonic changes. He also took time to play the B Major section with intention, but produced a big sound where desired, like at the brilliant conclusion. Indeed, he played like a thinking man's virtuoso.

After this work, he explained to the audience that a damper (for a low F, I believe) wasn't working properly, ie it wasn't stopping the sound of the note when he let go of the key. Several people came up onto the stage to discuss the situation, including Jerome Rose, who did something to it so that the piano functioned better. (During the intermission a technician took the whole action out and worked on it, which partly explains why the concert went on quite late!)

Mr. García García next played the Chopin Impromptus in the following order: 3, 1, 2, and then 4 (the Polonaise-Fantaisie).

For this listener the tempo of the main theme of the Third Impromptu was a bit too fast to enjoy the richness of the tonality of G-Flat Major, and the harmonic writing in the right hand. But the slower middle section in E-Flat Minor was really beautiful.

The First Impromptu scampered along merrily, though the F Minor middle section was slower, and thoughtful.

The Second Impromptu was quite slow and expressive. Mr. García García really knows how to sculpt a melody! And the coda rushed along with fast "sprays" of notes.

The Fantaisie-Impromptu was quick and swirling, until the lovely slow section in D-Flat Major.

At the conclusion of this work the audience applauded with great enthusiasm.

The first half of the program concluded with the First Piano Sonata of Chopin, the sonata that "no one" plays. Well, almost no one, though I believe I heard Shura Cherkassky play it once, and Robert Goldsand recorded it many years ago. It’s not generally thought to be on the level of the Second and Third Sonatas but is quirky, "different" and worth hearing. Mr. García García launched into it with plenty of energy and played powerfully, but also brought out the witty aspects. The second movement was charming, and the trio section in E Minor was reflective, but for the loud part near the end. The third movement, in A-Flat Major, is unusual, as it's in 5/4 time. It has a nocturne-like feeling, and a lovely, florid, sometimes ornamented melody. The finale is fiery from the start with fiendishly difficult passagework, some of which reminds one of ideas Chopin used in his concerti. Mr. García García played with great articulation and produced a huge sound.

The Mompou work was originally written as a cello and piano piece for the composer to play with cellist Gaspar Cassadó. After going through several incarnations it was completed in 1957 as this theme with 12 variations. It charms in many ways! The first variation adds a richer harmony to the original theme (which is the Chopin Prelude in A Major, Op. 28, No. 7). The second variation is flirtatious, followed by the third, which is a mazurka. The eighth variation has a sweet and very expressive melody. The ninth turns the theme into a waltz. The twelfth variation is hectic and intense, whereas the epilogue is a reprise of the original theme in a dreamy haze, with moments of subtlety and beauty.

The Albéniz pieces were all brilliantly played, with great panache and virtuosity. La Vega had an intense melody and swirling notes that seemed to "ride a wave," complicated figurations, and a soft ending. El Polo was both extravagant and playful, witty and intense, ending with a huge sound. Lavapiés was explosive, with sparks and accents flying.

As many of us, unfortunately, don't know this music well, and as the program did not describe the offerings as clearly as is shown above, and as La Vega is rather long, some thought that on its conclusion, Mr. García García had completed the entire group. And wondered why he immediately sat down and played two more pieces (!). This was later made clear.

But at that point in time I wished I could consult with the late, lamented Joe Patrych, friend of almost every pianist in New York, on whose encyclopedic knowledge of piano repertoire Gary Graffman once commented "He knows everything!" So it was a lovely surprise when Mr. García García dedicated his one encore, the Liszt transcription of the Schumann song "Widmung" (which means "dedication") to Joe. And played it beautifully!

26th International Keyboard Institute and Festival
Merkin Hall, New York
Quynh Nguyen - Piano
Alan Kay - Clarinet
Zvi Plesser - Cello
Stefan Jackiw - Violin

July 11th, 2024

Chopin: Waltz in A-Flat Major, Op. 34, No. 1
Tailleferre: Valse Lente
Ms. Nguyen

Debussy: Prèmiere rhapsodie for Clarinet and Piano
Mr. Kay
Ms. Nguyen

Debussy: Sonata for Cello and Piano
Mr. Plesser
Ms. Nguyen

Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time
Mr. Kay
Mr. Plesser
Mr. Jackiw
Ms. Nguyen

This program of mostly French solo and chamber music centered around the Vietnamese-born pianist, Quynh Nguyen, who demonstrated her sensitivity as a soloist and her excellence as an ensemble player. A graduate of Mannes, Juilliard and the Graduate Center at CUNY her main teachers included Bella Davidovich, Jacob Lateiner. Martin Canin, Jerome Rose, and Yvonne Loriod Messiaen. Among her other accomplishments, in addition to numerous concert appearances, are recordings of the complete piano works of Paul Chihara and some of the music of Germaine Tailleferre.

The Chopin Waltz with which Ms. Nguyen began the program was high-spirited, bouncy, and almost a bit breathless.

The Tailleferre Valse Lente was new to me. It was lovely, reflective, and nostalgic with a harmonic touch of French sophistication.

The performance of the Debussy Rhapsody, which I hadn't heard in years, was impressive. Beginning with quasi-improvisatory material it features a languid, expansive melody which comes around several times. Mr. Kay played it gorgeously! This was also the first demonstration in the concert of Ms. Nguyen's ability as an ensemble player. She was always perfectly together with him, and balances between the instruments were just right.

The Cello Sonata, a work in three movements, was one of Debussy's last works. The first movement has a plaintive theme, and later a much louder section. The second movement largely consists of a staccato conversation between the instruments, with starts and stops. It leads, without pause, into the scampering and witty last movement, which ends suddenly. Mr. Plesser played beautifully, and again, the ensemble was terrific.

The second half of the program consisted of Messiaen's Quartet For the End of Time, a very large-scaled and impressive work. I have great admiration for the excellence of the performance we heard.

The Quartet has eight movements, during which Messiaen uses the instruments in different combinations.

In the first movement the clarinet is accompanied by chords on the piano, and other material, often slides, in the strings.

The second movement sounds demonic, later with ghostly meanderings and a dramatic end.

The third movement, a very long clarinet solo, with a huge range of dynamics, expression, and a forceful conclusion, displayed Mr. Kay's artistry.

The very spirited fourth movement had the strings playing in unison.

The fifth movement had an intense cello melody which was matched by the piano.

The sixth movement features lively, irregular rhythms played by all instruments in unison, sometimes even in octaves on the piano.

The seventh movement begins with an intense cello melody, accompanied by the piano. Later, it is ferocious, and cataclysmic, with great washes of sound. It ends with the clarinet melody soaring above the other instruments.

Though one would expect a finale to include all the players, the eighth and final movement is for violin, played eloquently by Mr. Jackiw, and piano accompaniment. Sometimes the melody cried out; other times it was quiet and searching. There was a huge range in dynamics and in the tessitura of the violin part. And like at least one other movement, it eventually faded out to nothing.

The performance was enthusiastically received by the audience.

Alon Goldstein - IKIF
26th International Keyboard Institute and Festival
Merkin Hall, New York

July 10th, 2024

Bach/Siloti: Prelude in B Minor (WTC Book 1)
Fanny Mendelssohn: September - "At the River"
Felix Mendelssohn: Song Without Words - "The Hunt"
Bach/Petri: "Sheep May Safely Graze"
Schubert: Impromptus, Op. 90
Chen Yi: Variations on Awariguli
Bernstein/Goldstein: "The Masque" from Bernstein's Symphony No.2 ("The Age of Anxiety")
Glass: Etude No. 6
Chopin: Scherzo No. 3 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 39

Alon Goldstein is an Israeli-born pianist whose past performances at this Festival I have enjoyed. In addition to being an excellent pianist, he has a friendly personality, and usually makes comments about the music to the audience. A student of Leon Fleisher - as whose assistant he served - he has made numerous recordings, and performed all over the United States, Europe and Israel, and has taught at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, among other places,

His recitals are often composed of an intriguing combination of works, as was this one. He also groups pieces together in interesting ways, for example playing the first four as a set, without pauses in-between them.

The Bach/Siloti Prelude with which he began sounded ethereal and almost impressionistic. It was followed by the Fanny Mendelssohn piece "At the River," in the same key, and in a similar mood at the beginning, though there was increasing passion later on. Indeed, we don't hear enough of Felix Mendelssohn's music, and even less of his sister's compositions. It was followed by one of the Songs Without Words by Felix, the "Hunt," in A Major, which was boisterous and rollicking, featuring lovely passage work at the end.

At the end of this set came the Bach/Petri "Sheep May Safely Graze," which Goldstein's teacher, Leon Fleisher, also used to play. Mr. Goldstein's performance featured a straight-forward tempo, and was eloquent in its simplicity, with cross voices beautifully and clearly presented at different volumes.

Though I occasionally felt Mr. Goldstein used a bit too much rubato in the Schubert Impromptus he played them well and convincingly. Indeed, the beginning of the first one sounded as if he were setting off on a long journey, and was very expressive. He lingered effectively over the transition into A-Flat Major and modulating sections. He "set sail" at the beginning of the second Impromptu, and played the B-Minor section quite assertively, with the end of the piece rather faster than one usually hears it.

The mellow third Impromptu in G-Flat Major rolled along beautifully. Later, while in E-Flat Minor, it became more dramatic, later transitioning beautifully back into the home key. The beginning of the Fourth Impromptu, which begins in A-Flat Minor, came as a radical harmonic shock, after the closing of the previous piece. This Impromptu featured lightness at the beginning, but more intensity later, plus a triumphant end.

I particularly enjoyed the first two pieces on the second half of the program and would be happy if they became part of the standard mainstream repertoire!

The work by Chen Yi consists of variations on a Chinese folk theme. It is accessible, and not too "far out" harmonically. The tonal center is B, and the theme is based on the pentatonic scale. As it progresses, there are more elaborate figurations, different rhythms, quieter, "shaded" sounds, a fugue, and a big octave section. It has charm and brilliance, and ends in B Major, with the first two notes of the original theme.

Mr. Bernstein's transcription of "The Masque" from Bernstein's "Age of Anxiety" was a rip-roaring showstopper! A bleak harmonic beginning is followed by constant jazzy rhythms and cross-rhythms, what sounded like the theme of "Rockabye Baby," octaves tossed all about, and even some lovely right hand filigree passages. Brilliant!

Then came the Glass Etude No. 6 in F Minor. It featured very fast repeated notes, later in octaves, a huge increase in the tension at one point, and a sudden surprise ending one note above the tonic key.

The printed program concluded with the C-Sharp Minor Scherzo of Chopin. There was elegance and drama here, quiet in the slow contrasting E Minor section, and a very effective buildup in the section leading to the conclusion.

Mr. Goldstein played one encore, a Sonata in C Minor by Scarlatti. It was teasingly soft, with lovely fluttering ornaments, and a lot of charm.

New York
Merkin Hal, Kaufman Music Center
07/10/2024 -
Johann Sebastian Bach: Prelude in B Minor, BWV 855a (Arr. Alexander Siloti) – Sheep May Safely Graze BWV 208 (Arr. Egon Petri)
Fanny Mendelssohn: September: At the River
Felix Mendelssohn: Song Without Words, Opus 19: 3. “Hunting Song”
Franz Schubert: Impromptus, Opus 90, D. 899
Philip Glass: Etude No. 6
Leonard Berstein; Symphony No. 2 “The Age of Anxiety”: “The Masque” (Arr. Alon Goldstein )
Chen Yi: Variations on “Awariguli”
Fryderyk Chopin: Scherzo No. 3 in C Sharp Minor, Opus 39
Alon Goldstein (Pianist)

“I never try to be different just for the sake of it,. But somehow when I play a piece, it turns out unique anyway.”
Alon Goldstein interview, Jerusalem Post

To put it in the simplest words, the first 25 minutes of Alon Goldstein’s recital last night were spellbinding,

Spellbinding for three reasons. First, the selection of four works each complementing the other. Second, an audience which remained totally silent between each work. Third, of course the sensitivity, the grace and the utterly ravishing musicianship of Israeli-American soloist Alon Goldstein.

Frankly, I didn’t know what to expect before hearing him. A program of nine different works was unhealthily segmented. The soloist, given to speaking between his works, might lighten an evening for some. But I prefer to be overwhelmed by the notes. Third, despite his remarkable résumé, all that I knew was that Mr. Goldstein had been a prize student of Leon Fleischer.

The latter should have been enough to assuage doubts. Those first four works played in utter hushness was enough to hush any doubts that this would be an extraordinary evening for the International Keyboard Institute & Festival.

To the specifics. Two of the openers were arrangements of Bach, two were from the Mendelssohn siblings. From the start of the B Minor Prelude from Book 1, I felt a gentleness, a warm‑hued introspection, a lack of affects in order to bring out the effects. The famous Sheep May Safely Graze had that same supple tone, not so much with perfect balance as times when he brought out the bass to neatly overcome the treble theme.

Why choose the Mendelssohn’s in between? Obviously for history (Without Felix’s devotion, our Bach might have been as obscure as Telemann.) But second, that the third Song Without Words offered an unoffending energy. And Fanny? She and Clara Schumann might have had a competition (save that Clara’s father wouldn’t allow a Jew in his house). Her September was difficult, lyrical, hardly “feminine.”

For myself, Mr. Goldstein could have continued without an intermission. But he chose to talk, and the spell was broken. The Schubert Impromptus, though, had the same warmth (when necessary), the same dazzling technique (the second and fourth), and the G Flat Major which was offered like a Chopin Nocturne.

An extraordinary (and comforting) first half. The second challenging in a different way, starting with Chen Yi’s blindingly difficult Variations on “Awariguli”, that non-Sino-Tibetan name for a Uighur girl. The diatonic tune was simple enough, but Chen Yi then launched into nine variations which encompassed Western and Chinese modes, fugues, multi‑rhythms, crashing basses and an obvious coda which shook the Merkin rafters.

After this came a double triumph from Mr. Goldstein, his own arrangement from Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety. The opening was Bernstein in solitude. Mr. Goldstein then launched into a jazz movement played as if the pianist had never heard of Schubert and Bach. This was Art Tatum stuff, a brilliant survey of every jazz technique known, played with alacrity, electricity, joy.

The following Glass Sixth Etude was a joy of quadruple-fingering legerdemain. But equally, it led to the only downfall of this entrancing concert.

Starting the Chopin C Sharp Minor Scherzo without a break from the taxing Glass, he played this final work like a blazing Liszt third‑rate showpiece. The tempo was right, the fingers were accurate. But where the rest of the concert–whether Baroque or Bernstein–was the ultimate in clarity, this Chopin was muddled, fiery, doing what Alon Goldstein came nowhere near doing in the rest of his concert: milking for applause!

How could he apologize? Simple. A Scarlatti encore. I hate to use the word “refinement” so let’s say he played with thoughtfulness, surprisingly tasteful rubati, and–above all–with glowing luminosity.

Music as a whole is commonly referred to as an industry because recordings are manufactured. And that business side, is not just about making money, but all the non-musical elements that go into presenting the experience of music. When all those are shorn away, all that’s left is playing and listening, the alpha and omega of it all.

In person, that looks like the annual International Keyboard Institute & Festival, which is happening this week at Merkin Hall. The festival is a series of solo piano recitals from musicians who may not have big names but have enormous chops, musicality, wisdom, and taste. The concerts are for the connoisseur—listeners who relish hearing great artists play great music, without the distancing distractions of fame or ritual.

Alon Goldstein’s performance on Wednesday night was exemplary of this. A former student of and assistant to Leon Fleisher, Goldstein performs around the world and also teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory.

As Goldstein showed, his playing and ideas about music need no apologies, and one hopes they endure through his students. This was an exceptional concert, not only the pianism but the program. And not just the individual works from Bach, the Mendelssohns, Schubert, Glass, Chopin, and others, but the way Goldstein used the contents to create a form, and how he presented everything.

Starting from the last: Goldstein strode onstage, smiled and took a quick bow, and then started playing. As obvious as that is, it is worth pointing out that his presence had very little to do with the concert hall, it was like seeing a solo pianist play at a club like the Village Vanguard; friendly, unfussy, not with an attitude of exalting the canon of classical music, but playing—and listening—out of a sense of personal pleasure.

He began with an ingenious sequence of four short pieces, played as a medley: Bach’s Prelude in B minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (arranged by Alexander Siloti), Fanny Mendelssohn’s September: At the River and the Op. 19, no. 3 Song Without Words by her younger brother Felix, concluding with Egon Petri’s transcription of Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze. This was a gorgeous, miniature journey from the unexpectedly dreamy romanticism of the Prelude (played with substantial pedaling), then a picaresque traversal of landscapes, a subtle and marvelous transmutation of moods.

Goldstein introduced Schubert’s Op. 90 Impromptus by first mentioning how Schumann was critical of them, and then bringing for the journey metaphor, complete with clever gestures to other Schubert masterpieces via brooks, trouts, and supernatural forest creatures. His pace at the start of No. 1 in C minor was on the fast side, and one wondered how that might work in the end—one finds later Schubert piano works, with their simplicity and length, ideal in a post-minimalist world. But Goldstein answered the question with a stunning performance, and one that felt very personal, pressing through the music with both urgency and clarity, hearing and appreciating the possibilities of the music accumulating power and narrative ideas through time. His inner experience came out as a sort of performing aura, and in little human details like grinning to himself after tiny technical mistakes.

The second half opened with Chen Yi’s Variations on Awariguli, a finely made work that takes a Chinese folk melody and fits it into Western temperament, harmony, and form. The music’s heritage and legacy to Schumann and the like was stimulating, and connected to both the first half and the next piece, Goldstein’s own arrangement of “The Masque” movement from Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, “The Age of Anxiety.”

There was great life in the playing—this was true for the whole evening—Goldstein jaunting through the modernist resetting of ragtime and boogie-woogie, the pianist having fun on the keys.

This was all prelude to a stunning finish, Glass’s Etude No. 6 followed immediately by Chopin’s Scherzo No. 3, Op. 39, in C-sharp minor. The Glass Etude is derived from his Glassworks themes and full of agitated subdivisions; Goldstein’s articulation in these was remarkable, keeping up a nervous, staccato energy while still managing a legato feeling and a thrilling sense of hurtling forward at a speed just touching the danger point. That energy erupted into the Scherzo, barely under control, seeking out more thrills, surprises, undiscovered possibilities. Every juxtaposed musical idea was a strand that Goldstein roped into not just the form of the piece but the whole concert.

This was great musicianship with pure intellect, joy, and expression coming out of Goldstein and filling the hall. His well-chosen encore, Scarlatti’s Sonata in C minor, K.11, was less a valedictory bonus than a continuation of the sheer pleasure of the music.

Dudana Mazmanishvili - IKIF
26th International Keyboard Institute and Festival
Merkin Hall, New York

July 9th, 2024

Beethoven: Sonata No. 13 in E-Flat Major, Op. 27, No. 1
Schumann: Kinderszenen, Op. 15
Beethoven: Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27, No. 2 ("Moonlight")
Schumann: Kreisleriana, Op. 16

Dudana Mazmanishvili is a gifted Georgian pianist who has given many performances in Europe and the United States. Her teachers included her mother, Tamar Apakidze, Elisso Virsaladze and Jerome Rose. Like Mr. Rose, she has been a prize winner at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition. She has lots of power and technique and put together a program of two (according to their opus numbers) "numerically" adjacent works of Beethoven and Schumann. In each case, one sees what terrifically different, but also terrific works these composers could produce around the same time!

The first and third movements of the first Beethoven Sonata were lovely, and played at moderate speeds, though there was slightly too much feeling of rubato - for this listener - in the first. The recitativo at the end of the return of the third movement leading into the coda was beautifully controlled. Much of the second and fourth movements seemed rather too fast and too uniformly loud, and certain things, such as the hands imitating each other in the former, couldn't be clearly heard.

In the Kinderszenen, some sections seemed too intense, and too inflected with rubato for the innocence associated with children. But "Vom fremden Ländern und Menschen" and "Träumerei" had gorgeously played melodies. And the last four pieces were very fine, with lovely shading in the repeat of "Fast zu ernst," a very convincing "Fürchtenmachen" and wonderful control of soft playing in "Kind im Einschlummern" and "Der Dichter spricht."

The second half of the recital ranged from impressive to spectacular (!), starting with the Moonlight Sonata, which received a very enthusiastic reception at the end. The first movement did not start as softly as one sometimes hears it, but was dignified and sensitive. Ms. Mazmanishvili displayed excellent control of the dynamics, and the pacing felt absolutely right and logical. The second movement was graceful and charming. And the finale was powerful and exciting.

The first piece of Kreisleriana was very fast, explosive and "too much" - or so it originally seemed to me. But then I remembered that Schumann, especially in his big works, can be quite "extreme" and that this was appropriate. This interpretation of Op. 16 was very good, indeed, including the "frisky" first intermezzo in the second piece, the "wash of sound" in the second intermezzo, the mischievous third piece, the slow and thoughtful sixth piece, the brusque seventh piece, and lastly the sly and secretive final piece, the ending of which she played beautifully. Somewhere in the middle of this challenging work one sensed she was connecting with it on a deeper level, and I think the audience reacted to this.

Ms. Mazmanishvili played two encores, whose extreme contrast further displayed her artistic versatility.

The first was the Rondo-Toccata, by the Georgian composer Revaz Lagidze. This was a tour de force, a real show-stopper! It included extremely fast interlocking chords and huge splashes of sound, with lighter contrasting material in the middle.

The last encore was the Bach transcription of the Adagio After Marcello. It was slow, dignified, had beautifully articulated ornaments, and was played with great expressivity.

Jerome Rose - IKIF
26th International Keyboard Institute and Festival
Merkin Hall, New York

July 8th, 2024

Mozart: Sonata in C Major, K. 330
Schumann: Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6
Liszt: Harmonies poétiques et religieuses
iii. Benédiction de Dieu dans la solitude
vii. Funérailles
x. Cantique d'amour


The 26th annual International Keyboard Institute and Festival is underway in New York! In its more than quarter century of existence it has presented concerts, master classes, lectures, and other significant contributions to the summertime musical life of the city. Participants have ranged from masters of the senior generation (some of them - sadly - no longer with us) to extremely gifted young people, and everything in-between. This year it is featuring five evenings in a row of concerts at Merkin Hall, and master classes at Klavierhaus.

As always, the opening night recital was given by the Founder of the Festival, Jerome Rose. Mr. Rose, who won the Gold Medal at the 1961 Ferruccio Busoni International Competition and whose teachers included Adolph Baller, Rudolf Serkin and Leonard Shure, has a long history of solo and orchestral concert appearances around the world, and continues to perform, teach, and produce recordings prodigiously.

The first movement of the Mozart Sonata, with which the recital began, was brisk but focused, and had subtleties. The theme of the slow movement was strong and straight-forward. The last movement was rather fast, and had more a virtuosic than a charming feeling, but this worked well.

The Davidsbündlertänze of Schumann is a mammoth, VERY difficult work. Mr. Rose had a big-boned, fearless approach, not taking slower or easier tempi, yet got an impressively high percentage of right notes even in the challenging third piece in G Major, where the hands leap at high speed in opposite directions. Yet he also did some lovely things in the lighter, less virtuosic pieces, such as one of the later ones in E-Flat Major, where he brought out the voices playing against each other, and in the still later thoughtful one in B Major.

Jerome Rose is a noted Liszt pianist, and one could hear why.

In the Benédiction de Dieu dans la solitude he brought out spacious, stately themes, triumphant climaxes, yet also beautiful filigree work in the right hand against a left-hand melody.

The Funérailles showed his remarkable power and terrific octaves, particularly impressive for a man of 85!

The final work of this group, the Cantique d'amour, showed Mr. Rose in his element, his playing both richly expressive, yet also virtuosic.

Jerome Rose played two encores.

The first was the Chopin Etude in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 25, No. 7. Here, he took plenty of time to bring out the expressive depths it contains.

The final encore was Liszt's Consolation No. 3 in D-Flat Major, beautifully played, in memory of Professor Patrick Meanor and Joe Patrych, both of whom had strong connections to the Festival.

The International Keyboard Institute and Festival of 2024 is off to a good start!

New York
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center
07/08/2024 -
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Sonata No. 10 in C Major, K. 300h [330]
Robert Schumann: Davidsbündlertänze, Opus 6
Franz Liszt: Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, S. 173: 3. “Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude”, 7. “Funérailles” & 10. “Cantique d’amour”
Jerome Rose (Pianist)

“In each and every age joy and sorrow are mingled:
“Remain pious in joy, and be ready for sorrow with courage.”
Old saying: Epigraph to Davidsbündlertänze


For more than a quarter-century, Jerome Rose, International Keyboard Institute & Festival Founder and Director, has snubbed mid‑summer sun and hurricanes, bringing six or seven excellent pianists together for a week of virtuosity. And who better than Mr. Rose, whose less than humble For the Young Virtuoso summarizes his long distinguished life?


“Distinguished” can be an offensive word for an artist, signifying pedantry, Old School technique and even a lack of inner power. Yet Mr. Rose has indeed distinguished himself over seven decades, with orchestras, recitals, teaching and work throughout the world.


Thus, opening the International Keyboard Institute & Festival garnered a full house crowd at Merkin Hall. They came perhaps for the start of the festive week, but more likely because Jerome Rose is virtually an avatar of triumphant mid‑19th Century music. One expected massive fortissimos, whispering pianissimos and dazzling trills and double‑handed piano runs.


In this they were not disappointed. Yes, this was not perfect playing, and several fingering mistakes were made in the centerpiece Schumann work. But as a student of Leonard Shure, himself a student of Artur Schnabel, errors were mere breaths in relation to the import of an entire piece.


The opening was not, alas, Jerome Rose at his personal finest. Just as the Romantic age brought forth his emotional muscle, the Mozart C Major Sonata was a bit timid, a bit cold. Perhaps his allegiance to the Classical aura precluded excess feeling, and he did have the fingerwork down flat. But the second theme of the Andante cantabile is highly personal section, and Mr. Rose rode through it with the same charmless expertise as the rest of the work.


He was back on familiar ground (to Mr. Rose, not the audience), with Robert Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, an early work which never seems to hold together, even with the greatest players. The reason is apparent. The first theme (a tribute to Clara Schumann still named Clara Wieck), peeps through the 18 different songs, but not enough to give unity for 30 minutes.


The contrasts are wide enough, some dedicated to Florestan and Eusebius, the first pure joy, the second artistic grief. Mr. Rose ran through the work with all his craft. Yet the jolting differences weren’t so much contrasts as simply jumping emotions.


This though was a distinctive performance. One could, if fatuously, compare his interpretation with the aura of a Leos Janácek. Each movement wasn’t so much played as talked. One felt here that Schumann wanted to express verbally what could only be played on the keyboard.


The result was like a conversation between artist and instrument. Though each subject–sensitive or hackneyed, euphonious or dissonant–was offered and resolved before we knew the outcome.


The result was technical triumph for Mr. Rose. Musically it was baffling, The audience chose the former path.


There were no reservations about his three Liszt choices. (Four with a beautiful Third Consolation encore.) Mr. Rose used his big glowing tone for the “Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude.” This sounded nothing like a benediction or a solitude. (For that we must wait for Thursday’s Quartet for the End of Time.) But this was Liszt at his mightiest and Mr. Rose at his most thunderous.


“Funérailles” was equally a drama rather than a service. A dirge, a battle, a rush of fingers, a black curtain falling down. Mr. Rose gave us the whole drama. And if Liszt’s “Cantique d’amour” was less a hymn that a bubbly fizzy set of adorations, Jerome played it with all the digital finesse and inner power it deserved.

Reed Tetzloff - IKIF
25th International Keyboard Institute and Festival
Merkin Hall, New York

July 13th, 2023

Berg: Piano Sonata Op. 1
Ives: Three-Page Sonata
Beethoven: Sonata in C Major, Op. 53 "Waldstein"
Brahms: Piano Sonata No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 5

Reed Tetzloff is an excellent young American pianist I have had the pleasure of hearing several times before. Last night he gave a very fine recital at Merkin Hall on the IKIF concert series.

One noticed already, from the beginning of the Berg Sonata which opened the recital, a beautiful shaping of phrases. This performance was big-boned and emotional, with well-focused climaxes, many moments of beauty, and an exquisite end.

The Ives Sonata was volatile, and very dissonant with huge dynamic contrasts. At one point there was a quasi-melody in the right hand, set against a left hand chordal pattern that seemed to move according to a different rhythmic pattern. There were also occasional hints of tonality.

What can one say that's new about Beethoven's "Waldstein" Sonata?! Is there a pianist alive who doesn't have the fingerings of its passagework imprinted in his/her memory?! And yet, it's always good to hear another brilliant interpretation of it.

Mr. Tetzloff played the first movement at a fast, but not crazy fast tempo. Surprisingly, he did not do the repeat. He sometimes took a little bit of extra time for the second theme material, but did so judicially, not to excess. And the "drumroll" at the end of the development section, leading into the recapitulation, was very exciting!

Although the second movement is short, technically easy and, essentially, just an introduction to the last movement, I rarely hear it played this well. It was not too fast, as in many other performances, and had depth and sensitivity.

The theme of the last movement was played at a good, flowing tempo, and was not overpedaled, as one sometimes hears it. There were sections both lovely and powerful, and the brilliant coda was played terrifically fast!

Mr. Tetzloff had a broad, spacious approach to much of the Brahms Sonata. Occasionally one could imagine parts of it played slightly faster, but it was always effective, and it never dragged. The first movement was strong, and one could hear everything was well thought-out, and natural sounding. Indeed, one hears how well this pianist communicates the music! The second movement was lovely, played with gorgeous tone. The third movement was rambunctious, and the choral in the middle was soulful.

The Intermezzo, which is the fourth movement, started atmospherically, but became ominous after awhile. The fifth movement bounced along jauntily, and the coda was fast, indeed (very fast at the end!), and swept one along.

Reed Tetzloff played three encores. He said he would dedicate the first one to the memory of Andre Watts, whose death we only learned of earlier in the day. When he was 18, Tetzloff heard Watts played the "Emperor" Concerto, he told us, and was impressed by its heroism. The first encore was the Brahms Intermezzo in A Major, Op. 118, No. 2. It was spacious and loving.

Reviving a practice one rarely hears today, he next "preluded" (modulated) into D-Sharp Minor, which led directly into Scriabin's famous Etude in that key, his Op. 8, No. 12. It was excitingly played, but had a novel touch: instead of charging into the end,
Mr. Tetzloff held back the tempo and then accelerated into it.

The final encore was the Earl Wild transcription of Gershwin's song "Embraceable You." Hurtling along with reams and reams of notes, it had incredible energy and irresistible charm!

Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center

07/12/2023

Nicolas Namoradze: Memories of Rachmaninoff’s Georgian Song
Johann Sebastian Bach: French Suite No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 812
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2, Opus 27: 3. Adagio (arr. Namoradze)
Győrgy Ligeti: Etudes No. 11 “En suspens” & No. 15 “Pour Irina”
Franz Schubert: Sonata in B‑flat Major, D. 960

Nicolas Namoradze (Pianist)

“Georgians treat you like royalty, and the odds are you’ll do a lot of eating, drinking and toasting. And everyone sings there. I mean, it’s all they do. So at eight, I heard a lot of Georgian singing, which is often really complicated, with seven- or eight-part harmonies.”
Katie Melua

Never having visited the Republic of Georgia, my only knowledge comes from the fabulous wines, the reputation of fearlessness–and the massive monastery bells. The largest is the millennium-old Gelati Bell. And that segues into a most original recital by Georgian‑born, Hungarian/American-educated Nicolas Namoradze.

This month’s nightly “International Keyboard Institute and Festival” is–to say the least–diverse. Two nights ago, they presented a Liszt‑Chopin program. Last night, the cool Nicolas Namoradze presented music inclining to show Mr. Namoradze’s less virtuosity as to show his sensitivity and extraordinary tone-coloration. As well as his compositional skills.

Back to the bells. Mr. Namoradze started with his puzzling title Memories of Rachmaninoff’s Georgian Song. The “song” was actually a series of tolling bells. First in the treble staff, then deep into the bass (obviously the sound of the Gelati bell), up to the top, with many a figuration in between. What was Rachmaninoff’s original song? We never knew. It may have been hidden amidst the minimalist tolling, or simply ignored. But Mr. Namoradze’ mesmeric Glass‑like moments set the stage for his eclectic recital.

Not that the two Ligeti Etudes were a total change. Once again, they gave space for Mr. Namoradze’s lucidity and unassuming confidence. The complete series of Ligeti’s Etudes will be performed later this year by Taka Kigawa, and that should be truly exciting. Mr. Namoradze gave us a taste.

He started with a relatively quiet, almost tender “In Suspense” work, played with soothing grace. The next began with equal grace–but with typical surprise (as if anything in Ligeti is typical!)–suddenly increased tempo to a dazzling finish.

In all three opening works, Mr. Namoradze was almost spiritually sensitive. Not that he eschewed the fireworks when necessary. But his was not a Chopin‑ish decorousness. More a delight in translucent color.

The complete change of pace was Bach’s First French Suite, given an unagitated performance. Six dances played with natural directness. No added trills or mordents, a subtle sense of sadness in the “Sarabande,” and a sure-handed mastery of the closing “Gigue.” Nothing idiosyncratic, just pure music played with respect for Bach’s notes.

The only question in the first half was Mr. Namoradze’s undeniably brilliant transcription of the Adagio movement from Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony. First, yes, Mr. Namoradze did give a mighty piano replica of the original. Second, yes, he added his own little filigrees to the movement, which the composer himself might have admired.

And yet...and yet this was still a tour de force. A work where Mr. Namoradze glowed, where his artistry was apparent. But oh, with such fingering, such a genius for Russian music (like his Scriabin encores) I wanted the original Rachmaninoff, the composer for the Steinway. This was a crowd‑pleaser, and a worthy one. But a few Etudes-Tableaux might wisely replaced the arrangement.

The second half was devoted to Schubert’s final sonata. So cryptic, filled with so many shadowy clues, so many semiotic tonal words, that one can listen to any masterful musician play it. Each time, the chthonic wrestles with the joyful. And no pianist can possibly be successful.

Mr. Namoradze’s youth saw these daring first two movements moved along steadily to tell their kabbalistic stories. His pauses were long, the rubati were frequent, but these all added to the story‑telling. The last two movements were played with a jaunty articulation, a 26‑year‑old pianist playing music of a 31‑year‑old composer trying his best to avoid the specter of oncoming death.

In fact, Nicolas Namoradze has much life to offer. His delight, accomplishment and sensory mastery promises more challenges, even risks in his glowing future.

CODA: The death of Milan Kundera this week was celebrated, rightly, as the passing of a fine novelist. In fact, The Joke was one of the great satires against the Communist/Fascist society where he lived his first years. His essays about “being European” was equally thoughtful, brave and anything but polemic. Barely mentioned, though, was Kundera as a music critic. More specifically, a music essayist. Sometimes essays by themselves, sometimes within his novels. Not Janácek, of course–though his studies are unparalleled. But his essays on Stravinsky, Martinů and other composers were always lucid, always enlightening. Even at the age of 94, this French/Czech artist died too young. He will be missed.

Nicolas Namoradze - IKIF
25th International Keyboard Institute and Festival
Merkin Hall, New York

July 12th, 2023

Namoradze: Memories of Rachmaninoff's "Georgian Song"
Ligeti: Etude No. 11 - "En suspens"
Ligeti Etude No. 16 - "Pour Irina"
Bach: French Suite No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 812
Rachmaninoff/Namoradze: Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27
iii. Adagio
Schubert: Sonata in B-Flat Major, D. 960


The 25th season of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival is in full swing with six evenings of recitals at Merkin Hall and a series of master classes at Klavierhaus. Last night, following recitals the previous several evenings by Jerome Rose, Martin Garcia Garcia and Jeffrey Swann, Nicolas Namoradze played a challenging and most intriguing program. He has a big technique, a huge dynamic range, and the ability to make a convincing case for works the listener hasn't encountered before. Indeed, the whole first half of the program was most effective!

It is, however, difficult to write well about music you haven't heard before, but I will try to do the best I can regarding the Namoradze and Ligeti works at the beginning of the program.

I could not find any Rachmaninoff in Mr. Namoradze's Memories of a Georgian Song but found it fascinating, nonetheless. It began incredibly softly with high treble octave leaps accompanied later by chords and chord clusters. Sometimes it was quite harsh, and alarming. Later on there were fragments of melody, and soft parallel chords. In the end, there was a return to the very soft high treble octave leaps with some accompanying notes teasing us as to whether it would end up in major or minor. (The end was so soft that, up in the balcony, I couldn't tell which!)

Interestingly, the shift to the Ligeti etudes seemed not such a big change in styles. The first etude was, indeed, full of suspense, with interesting modes, and moods. The second etude started very slowly, as if it was the motive of a fugue. Full of dissonances, it was also very expressive. Later it became faster, and it concluded with some brilliant
fingerwork.

Mr. Namoradze's playing of the Bach French Suite was warm, very clear, and 'conversational." Some highlights of it, for me, were his bringing out the voices of the Allemande, the majestic feel of the opening of the Sarabande, the charm, but also the depth of the Minuets, and the great clarity of the Gigue, as well as its triumphant conclusion in D Major.

This may be a minority opinion, but I have trouble falling in love with Rachmaninoff's orchestral works as with his piano works. So I was not optimistic when anticipating my reaction to Mr. Namoradze's transcription of the slow movement of the Second Symphony. But, to my great surprise, I found it wonderful, "translated" into the language of the piano! There was much lush, gorgeous music, and powerful passages reminiscent of the piano concerti. Later there was a huge climax on a C Major chord. The music then continued only after a long, dramatic pause, very quietly. Another later section had a beautiful mid-range melody, played by the left hand, accompanied by elegant figurations played by the right hand.

The second half of the program consisted of the great B-Flat Major Sonata of Schubert, one of the glories of the repertoire. It's a very big work, even more so when one plays the first movement repeat, as has become more common nowadays, and which Mr. Namorzade did. Schubert sits on the cusp of the time between the Classical and Romantic eras. For my mind, Mr. Namoradze's approach was too much into the latter, leaving out perhaps some of the good things of the former. One should never play like a metronome, of course, but too much adjustment of tempo (Ie. excessive rubato, or overly long pauses at rests) for the sake of "expressivity" (in the first movement, especially) can lessen the strength of the structure, the logic, and the already inherent expressivity in the music.

Nonetheless, there was much to admire in his interpretation, including the charm of the Scherzo of the third movement, the witty, somewhat pompous playing of the Trio, and a truly magical shift to C Major in the second.

For encores, Nicolas Namoradze played two works of Scriabin. They were wonderful! The first was his Etude, Op. 42, No. 4. It was sly, suggestive, and gorgeous!

The second encore was the Fourth Scriabin Sonata, a fearsomely difficult work. It ranged from unearthly, quasi psychedelic lightness, in the beginning, to a martial feeling and a colossal sound at the end. It was stunning!

Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center
07/10/2023 -

“International Keyboard Institute and Festival”:
Frederic Chopin: Mazurkas 1-4, Opus 33; Barcarolle in F-Sharp Minor, Opus 60; Preludes (13,3,2,14), Opus 28; Sonata Number 2 in B-flat minor, Opus 35; Franz Liszt Sposalizio from Années de Pèlerinage II “Italie”, S.161/1; Sonata in B minor, Opus 58

Martín García García (Pianist)

”Chopin, the most ethereal, subtle, and delicate among our modern tone-poets. It is a rare thing for a great artist to stand patiently and hold aloft the blazing torch of his own genius, to illume the gloomy grave of another: yet this has Liszt done through love for Chopin.”
Franz Liszt, Life Of Chopin

”Simplicity is everything…no noises, no effects, just simplicity, as in all that is beautiful.”
Frederic Chopin (to his students)


First, I had no desire to stay for what was certainly going to be an encore of Martín García García’s skills. After his performance of Liszt’s B Minor Sonata, Mr. Garcia’s towering emotional power said what had to be said.

Any further piano-playing would be dross on the gold.

Second, this is a pianist who belies his youth, especially in the two Liszt works of the second half. Most pianists of his age would thunder through the music, their gifts wrapped up in the gaudiest covering. Mr. García García was hardly averse to thunder and lightening–when necessary. Yet when it came to the utter the breathless beauty of “The Breath” or the post-Beethoven majesty, tragedy and triumph of the Sonata, this pianist was closer to a Richter than a Trifonov.

Then again, Mr. García García already has an admirable history. First Prize-winner at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, Third Prize winner at the most prestigious Chopin Piano Competition, he has already performed with the great orchestras of Europe, was invited to play at the Martha Argerich festival and continues with his own compositions, as well as his native Spanish composers.

Nor was it a coincidence that the International Keyboard Institute and Festival invited him this year. After all, the distinguished pianist Jerome Rose is not only a director of the Festival–but was Mr. García García’s teacher at Mannes College.

His repertory is wide enough. But here he confined himself to Chopin (the first half) and Liszt, excelling at both.

The Chopin selections were played with both intensity and decorum. The four Mazurka selections were emotionally the most difficult. How could Chopin have possibly framed his most exquisite pictures in the frame of a 16th Century dance? The originality, the pictures (the dreams?) and the emotions were wildly diverse. Mr. García García didn’t go off the rails with the wild Second Mazurka, and was decorous enough with the others. No excessive rubato, always control. He did give a most personal style to the Third Mazurka. This was a conversation between treble and bass–and we could eavesdrop on the fascinating colloquy.

The Barcarolle was played as a beautiful abstraction. I never once caught the gondolier’s song, but Chopin was enough. The four Preludes were a joy. Mr. García García understood the romantic cantabile of the 13th and 2nd and played the running left hand of the 3rd with felicitous exactness.

Yet his real challenge came in the Second Sonata. Mr. García García Garcia’s technical dexterity came with that enigmatic minute-long frenzied finale. Before that, he was neither violent nor melodramatic. (The melodrama was left for the Liszt.) One hardly looks for contentment here, but one certainly appreciated Mr. García García Garcia’s clarity, his limpid artistry

One assumes that any pianist worth his chops would approach the Funeral March with the same care as Olivier or Gielgud approaching “To Be Or Not To Be.” Ignore the axiomatic familiarity. Both the movement and the monologue tell–in notes and poetry–the enigmas of death.

Mr. García García didn’t attempt an idiosyncratic Marche Funèbre. The notes can speak for themselves. The first theme was respectful, never lugubrious. That second theme was less a contrast then a complement to the first, the tribute of a single flower on the tombstone.

The pianist’s pictures of Chopin were welcoming. His huge frescos, his magnificent Renaissance tapestries of Liszt were–if never jolting–always electrifying. The opening Sposalizio, had it been written by Chopin, would have been a felicitous bagatelle. Mr. García García gave the multi-layered Liszt the utmost in feeling, with a variety of breadths. From the opening quiet procession to the fortissimo climax, this was as much painting as music.

As to the B Minor Sonata, I was stunned. Under his hands, one heard not so much the reputed “transformation of themes” or demonic changes of movements. Rather, Mr. García García eliminated the opaque “meaning” to present a gorgeous, literally mesmerizing architectural monument, a creation far far beyond his years, and, under his hands, a vivid masterpiece.

Martín García García is an exciting young Spanish pianist who played the final recital at this year’s International Keyboard Institute and Festival, founded by one of his teachers, Jerome Rose. The First Prize winner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, he has also won other prizes, such as at the Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw, and he has performed in solo recital and concerto appearances both here and in Europe. His playing evokes enthusiasm from his audience, and that is not hard to understand.

Mr. García is an excellent Mozart player! The first movement of the C minor Sonata, K. 457 was vigorous, yet nuanced and sensitive. The development section was dramatic, and the rather surprising quiet conclusion was effectively played. The slow movement worked well at a straight-forward tempo. Some of the fast runs tickled, and the coda was delicious! The last movement, a somewhat strange piece, had an improvisational feeling, forceful, yet with charm. Here Mr. García added some intriguing and delightful cadenzas.

With barely a pause after concluding the Mozart, Mr. García offered three Liszt works. He launched into the jarring minor ninths at the beginning of Funérailles. He played the theme in F minor slower than one sometimes hears it, but it worked very well his way. He really picked up steam and created a huge climax in the octave section before the “fading away into nothing” end of the piece. Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este was a beautiful picture, in sound, of the splashing fountain, with some feelings of nostalgia, yet also full-strength exuberance. The Valse-Impromptu, which concluded the first half, was playful and light-hearted, though occasionally thoughtful, and full of charm.

Mr. García certainly brought out the contrasts between the three Chopin Waltzes, Op. 34, which began the second half! I had never before heard the A-flat Waltz played so fast! Yet, it featured nice shadings, and good musician that he is, repeated phrases always came back in different dynamics the second time around. Similarly, I had never heard the A minor Waltz played so slowly, but found it totally convincing. The F major Waltz, the theme of which has always reminded me of a dog chasing its own tail, was very fast; playful, elegant, and puckish, with a lovely modulation into the D-flat major section.

The printed program concluded with the B minor Sonata of Chopin. The first movement is a particular masterpiece, full of both bravura and poetry. It’s difficult not to compare in one’s mind great performances one has heard of it. How does Mr. García’s interpretation compare? It’s already very good and will probably ripen further. One heard a real understanding of the idiom, and there were some very special moments.

Not surprisingly, the first section of the second movement sizzled. Mr. García’s ability to play slowly, convincingly, and very expressively was shown in the middle section of this movement, and in the third movement, the end of which was particularly lovely, and dreamy. Interestingly, he played the finale at just a moderate speed, making a convincing case for his approach, especially with his terrific finger work in the fast runs.

Mr. García generously went on to play four encores. The first one was the Schumann Fantasiestück, Op. 111, No. 2. The A-flat major main theme was deeply felt, and the C minor contrasting section had real passion. The coda was particularly beautiful. The second was the Waltz, Op. 38, of Scriabin. It was charming, bubbly, virtuosic, and occasionally bombastic. The third encore was the well-known C-sharp minor Waltz of Chopin, Op. 64, No. 2. It was stately and elegant. The final encore was Mompou’s Jeunes filles au jardin (Girls In the Garden). Somewhat reminiscent of the styles of Debussy and Satie, it was mostly laid-back and easy-going, yet with outbursts. This is a pianist I would like to hear again!

The International Keyboard Institute and Festival, now in its 21st year, has been the high point of my summer musical events for three years now. IKIF offers people in the New York area two full weeks of outstanding concerts, masterclasses, and lectures at Hunter College. More than 100 piano students come from around the world to study and compete; their lessons and masterclasses are augmented by the opportunity to interact with and hear world class pianists perform every day. No event that I attended was less than superb; and, as in past years, there were several recitals that rank among the best I have ever attended.

The masterclasses and 6 PM recitals (Prestige Series) were held in Hunter’s Lang Concert Hall. Owing to asbestos abatement near Hunter’s Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, six of the big evening concerts (Masters Series) were across town in Merkin Hall (a block north of Lincoln Center). The remaining 8:30 concerts were held in Lang Hall, whose smaller seating area (about 150) resulted in several sell outs and the need for some stage seats. At only $10 a ticket for the Prestige Series and $20 for the Masters, a better concert deal could not be found anywhere in New York.

On July 14, festival founder and Director Jerome Rose gave the opening concert, as he has done each of the past seasons. He was present for almost every event over the next two weeks. This year he played Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantasy, Schumann’s Kreisleriana, and a towering performance of Brahms’s huge Sonata No.3. I was immediately struck by the fabulous sound of the Yamaha CFX Concert Grand in Merkin Hall, a step up in both acoustics and comfort from the Kaye Playhouse. (Merkin will be used for the major concerts next year.) Rose’s encore was Chopin’s Etude, Opus 25:7.

This year Chopin was the most played composer, especially when one includes the Godowsky Studies, big sets of variations by Mompou and Rachmaninoff, and Liszt’s transcriptions of his 6 Polish Songs. We heard 3 of the 4 ballades, all 4 scherzos, Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3, 5 nocturnes, 3 polonaises, the Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise, and several others. Author and historian Alan Walker was there to discuss his recent biography of Chopin with Rose on a Saturday afternoon. Beethoven, in advance of his 250th birthday in 2020, also was very well represented: 5 of the last 7 sonatas, plus the Pathetique, Quasi una Fantasia, Moonlight, Funeral March, Les Adieux, and Waldstein, plus both sets of bagatelles, the ‘Andante Favori’, and the ‘Rage over a Lost Penny’—a wonderfully broad picture of Beethoven’s piano music.

Many of Schumann’s big works also were programmed: Kreisleriana, Carnaval, Davidsbundlertanze, Humoreske, Kinderszenen, and the Symphonic Etudes, plus a few others. Liszt certainly got his due, especially from Jeffrey Swann. Brahms, Debussy, and Rachmaninoff were also well represented.

I complemented Festival Director Julie Kedersha on her ability to gather so many great pianists and keep program duplications to a minimum. As the Festival is a learning experience for all of the students, the opportunity to hear two different performances of the Waldstein or Chopin’s Sonata 2 is not a bad idea at all. Rachmaninoff ’s Sonata 2 was played in two different versions—also a good learning opportunity.

There is general agreement that the Tchaikovsky and Van Cliburn piano competitions are the most important. IKIF continues to have a significant group of medalists from those two quadrennial events, sometimesbooked to perform even before their wins. This shows a keen awareness on the part of the festival’s directors. Several years back, less than a month after winning Tchaikovsky, Daniil Trifonov made his New York debut at the IKIF. This year Mao Fujita did likewise, only a few weeks after taking the Silver medal in Moscow. The night before, 2013 Van Cliburn winner Vadym Kholodenko played a recital, and the day before that was 2013 Cliburn Bronze medalist Sean Chen. The 2015 Tchaikovsky Silver medalist George Li played, as did 1977 Cliburn Bronze winner Jeffery Swann. An unscheduled surprise came after a wonderful recital by Aleksandra Kasman of Russian preludes (including all 13 of Rachmaninoff’s Opus 32), when she called her father up to the stage for a rollicking duet encore by Valery Gavrilin. Yakov Kasman was the 1997 Cliburn Silver medalist and told me, following the performance, what the obscure encore was.

Li’s recital included Beethoven’s Variations in C minor, ‘Andante Favori’, and Waldstein. In the second half Schumann’s ‘Vogel als Prophet’ was followed by Carnaval. I had only seen him play Prokofieff ’s Concertos Nos. 1 and 3 before, so this was a very different side of his playing. He had brilliance when called for, but much sensitivity and some beautiful quiet sounds as well. His pianissimo octave glissandos towards the end of the Waldstein were perfect. The encores brought Liszt into the recital quite effectively. The arrangement of Schumann’s ‘Widmung’ (Dedication) was the first of several performances of this warhorse over the course of the festival. Then an unbelievably fast and accurate ‘Campanella’brought the house to its feet.

Other notable recitals included 20-yearold Mao Fujita’s NY debut. He began with Mozart’s Sonata No. 10, delicate and balanced with wonderful legato phrasing. This was followed with etudes by Liszt and Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky’s ‘Dumka’. After intermission he played Chopin’s four Scherzos with brilliance and almost no wrong notes, though there was no risk taking beyond what was called for in the music. I suspect Fujita will mature into a true world-class pianist.

With only half an hour to clear Lang Hall and tune the piano, 80-year-old Ann Schein played the most heroic program of the festival.At her orchestral debut in 1957 she played Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1 and Rachmaninoff’s No. 3 on the same program (a year before Van Cliburn won the first Tchaikovsky competition with the same works). Coincidentally, Fujita played the same pair, back to back just three weeks earlier in the finals round. Schein was clearly the old master and took time to talk with the audience and share her thoughts on the pieces she played: Beethoven’s Les Adieux, Copland’s Variations, Ravel’s Sonatine, Debussy’s ‘Isle Joyeuse’, a big group of Rachmaninoff’s etudes-tableaux and preludes, and, after a brief intermission, Chopin’s Sonata No. 3. Her encores were Chopin’s Nouvelle Etude No. 2 and the brilliant Prelude in B-flat minor. Despite her frequent finger slips, if I could have one piano lesson from any of the festival’s pianists, she would be the one.

Vladimir Feltsman played Beethoven and Chopin and gave the students a lesson in how to control an audience. Don’t try to applaud between the Bagatelles or he’ll hold up a finger and silence things. When someone chuckled at that, his look from the stage really silenced things quickly. Four nocturnes and a ballade were played without a break on the second half, perhaps a little selfish of the pianist. He played extremely well and modified Chopin’s cadenza at the end of the Nocturne, Opus 9:2, with great taste, but he cracked only one brief smile during his final bows. I contrast that with Sean Chen, a personable, at-ease young man who constructed a “Homage to Chopin” recital with program notes given from the stage in a very engaging manner. Several works on the first half were for left hand alone, including Godowsky’s notorious arrangement of the ‘Revolutionary Etude’ for one hand. All six of Liszt’s arrangements of songs by Chopin were played as a group quite effectively. Each half ended with a big set of variations on Chopin themes: Mompou’s on the Prelude in A and Rachmaninoff’s on the Prelude in C minor. After all of that Chopin, Chen’s encore was his own arrangement of Bernstein’s Candide Overture.

Perhaps the most satisfying program was Vyacheslav Gryaznov’s. I was fortunate to review his most recent CD of Russian transcriptions (his own) and had high expectations, which were not disappointed. After a little delay in getting the recital started, he arrived at the piano and sat for a few moments before saying “Waiting for morning mood” in a deep Russian voice. That set the tone for beginning his transcription of ‘Morning’ and ‘Anitra’s Dance’ from Grieg’s Peer Gynt. His playing of three Transcendental Etudes was phenomenal; rarely do I get to see this kind of playing about 15 feet from the keyboard. The second half included a couple of his own transcriptions followed by Rachmaninoff’s Sonata No. 2. It was a test for me to hear because he began with the original 1913 version and incorporated some of the revised 1931 version— similar to Horowitz’s in 1943 but not quite the same. His performance rivaled the one I heard Horowitz play (from a far greater physical distance) back in the late 1970s. Encores were the Prelude in G minor, Etude-Tableau in E-flat minor, and a Grieg nocturne that brought us back to the opening composer.

Ilya Yakushev, part of IKIF since 2002, again played the final concert, which included an exciting Pictures at an Exhibition. He was joined in the second half by cellist Thomas Mesa for Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata. This was the only time over the festival’s two weeks that a second musician was scheduled in performance. I’d like to see more duets (like the Kasman encore) and chamber music with piano.

One of the great aspects of attending many concerts over two weeks was getting a chance to speak with some of these great artists. They typically attend recitals by their colleagues; in fact it was Kholodenko who sat down next to me at Sean Chen’s recital. Both played some of Godowsky’s Chopin studies, and it was interesting to observe one’s response to the other’s performance. Gryaznov talked to me about his version of Rachmaninoff’s Sonata No. 2. Yakushev spoke with me at length comparing Rachmaninoff’s similar piano writing in the Cello Sonata and the Concerto No. 2 that he was also scheduled to perform in the coming months.

There are summer music festivals all over the world. There are also summer workshops for students of all ages with opportunities for lessons and performances. IKIF remains unique in that it is both, plus an opportunity for the best to compete for cash prizes and being invited back next year to perform on one of the concert series. The past two winners, Martin Garcia Garcia and Dina Ivanova, played wonderful recitals on the Masters Series this year and last. No outright first prize was awarded this year, and the prize money was divided among the four finalists, who will all be designated as laureates. I agree with this as the best solution when all are good with no clear standout. Each will have an honorable credit to add to their resumes along with $2,500.

Now I have to go through a period of withdrawal.

Since 1999, the International Keyboard Institute and Festival (IKIF), which takes place every year, is one of the most important piano events in New York City. It was founded by the Pianist Jerome Rose, who has always managed to engage significant Interpreters and Pedagogues for the Festival. PIANIST has been following the whole Festival.

It is hot in New York City, extremely hot. The thermometer shows 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in the second half of July and, additionally, there is a sweat-driving humidity which is over 80 percent. The Mayor, Edward de Blasio, has already canceled the New York Triathlon and a City Festival in Central Park. However, the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, in short, IKIF, can be held thanks to air conditioners. During the first half of IKIF, recitals will be organized in Merkin Hall, a concert hall with 450 Seats on Manhattan's Upper West Side, just a stone’s throw away from the Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center and The Juilliard School. The later Concerts, Masterclass- Lessons and the Piano Competition will be performed in Lang Hall at Hunter College. Hunter College is a part of the public City University of New York, and rises like a neo-gothic knight’s castle in the sky above the Upper Eastside.

IKIF was founded by Jerome Rose, who was taught by Schnabel’s pupil Leonard Shure, and by Rudolf Serkin and who won the Gold Medal at the Busoni Competition in Bozen (Bolzano). Rose is valued as one of the leading interpreters of the German Romantic piano repertoire. In 1981, he created the International Festival of the Romantics in London, which included all arts in the form of performance and reading. Another Festival was created by Rose in 1986 for the 100th Birthday of Franz Liszt. Furthermore, has he organized the Schubert/ Brahms -Festival in 1997 at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In 1999, IKIF was started in New York, and he has been leading it, together with his wife, Frau Julie Kedersha (who had been an active Artist Manager in her own Agency for many years) since 2000.

Precision and Clarity

Traditionally, Jerome Rose opens IKIF with a piano recital. He has chosen two portentous pieces of the German Romantic school for his Recital: Schumann’s “Kreisleriana” and Brahms’s Third Piano Sonata in F minor, in combination with Chopin’s “Polonaise-Fantaisie”. In spite of his age of 81, Rose plays the piano with precision and clarity. Every voice progression is pronounced, nothing sounds blurred. He would never shape something, which only gives a good delivery to the audience, as every Crescendo or Rubato is much more based by his deep understanding of the harmonic, rhythmic and syntactic structure of each piece; still, his playing is not dry at all, but rather filled with emotions. His recital’s listeners mostly consist of the the students of IKIF- Masterclasses, Pianists-colleagues and New York “Piano Freaks”. They appreciate his performance so much that they have been giving plenty of applause; Rose showed his gratitude with a Chopin- Miniatur.

Many more artists of IKIF have presented themselves also with a high level, such as Jeffrey Swann, who comes from Texas. He was interpreting Liszt strictly, fragrance-free and with less pedal, so to say from the Beethoven- Perspective. This was pianistically brilliant, worked musically sometimes better and sometimes less, and he was highly interesting in his radicalism. Likewise, the Ukrainian Vadym Kholodenko, winner of the 2013 Van Cliburn Competition, acted idiosyncratically. He made strong contrasts within Mozart and was impressive with an extraordinary sound-control and high transparency. Alon Goldstein and Vladimir Feltsman have also shown themselves as strong musical characters, and who have moved the audience into their paths with unusual programs and original views.

Romantic Chopin Playing

The Italian Massimiliano Ferrati and the second award winner of the 2019 Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition, Mao Fujita could showed their romantic Chopin playing, and Beethoven-lovers could also have a taste of Beethoven because of the performance of Nina Tichman, a piano Professor from Cologne. The young Spaniard, winner of the 2018 IKIF competition, Martín García García, enraptured the audience with his sensual as well as virtuosic Paganini- Variations of Brahms, as Jeffrey Siegel, famous for his lectures, was expertly explaining pieces from Bach and Chopin, before Martín García García was playing them. With the almost 80-year-old Ann Schein, even a real Rubinstein student came on the stage, who performed at the White House before John F. Kennedy.

Nowadays, there are truly a lot of Piano Festivals around the globe. However, what makes IKIF in New York so unique are the amount of master classes given by the Concert Artists on site. In the course of IKIF, students from all over the receive lessons three hours per week and also can attend every other class as a listener.

In addition, they are also allowed to take part of the IKIF Competition. Twenty-three IKIF students signed up to perform for the jury this year, chaired by the renowned pianist and conductor Eduard Zilberkant. The prize pool had a total of $10,000, which was awarded by the jury for further musical education. Four pianists made it to the final: The Californian Rachel Breen who delighted with a beautiful piano sound and original detail, but lost herself in a larger form. The Russian-German Alexander Sonderegger impressed with great virtuosity in Liszt's Paganini etudes, but neglected a bit the capricious moments of this music. The Russian Simon Karakulidi scored with a brilliant representation of Prokofiev's études, but failed sonically with Mozart's cantilenas, and the Chinese Wenting Yu played a wonderful, symphonic-powerful Brahms, but did not consider that Rameau's pieces were composed for the delicate harpsichord.

No first prize

Since none of the finalists was completely convincing, the jury decided not to award a first prize and to divide the prize money by four; so each of the finalists could feel victorious. As all of the participants in IKIF have grown into a large family over two weeks, Jerome Rose later invited the Award Winners and selected guests of IKIF to his stylish New York apartment. There they were served his highly valued homemade (!) guacamole, and his legendary spaghetti. So the festival found a worthy graduation in a small circle.

July 27th, 2019

Scriabin: Prelude and Nocturne For the Left Hand, Op. 9
Mussorgsky: Pictures At an Exhibition
Mr. Yakushev

Rachmaninoff: Sonata For Cello and Piano in G Minor, Op. 19
Mr. Mesa and Mr. Yakushev

Though pianist Ilya Yakuyshev has been a part of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival organization for many years I had somehow never heard him play before. This was rectified on Saturday evening by this all-Russian solo and duo recital. Interestingly, though he says he plays relatively little Russian music, the St. Petersburg-born Mr. Yakushev seems to have this music in his blood, and gave very effective, and emotional performances.

He began with the two famous left-hand works of Scriabin. The Prelude started slowly and tugged and pulled gently forward. It led directly into the Nocturne, which had a flowing beginning, and a powerful middle section. Later on there was the lovely filigree section, and a beautiful end.

Mr. Yakushev's "Pictures" were big-boned and confident. He "feels" everything, bringing out the individual character of each section. Every time the Promenade returned it had an entirely different sound and character.

"The Old Castle" was distant and mysterious. "Bydlo" was heavy, and "The Unhatched Chicks" were very fast and light, with a cute ending. There was a breathless dash through "The Market at Limoges", and "Catacombs" was eerie. Yakushev tore through "The Hut On Fowl's Legs", then did a big buildup to "The Great Gate of Kiev", the theme of which he did not play loudly at the beginning, though there was a huge sound at the end.

My introduction to the Rachmaninoff Sonata for Cello and Piano was an informal reading on Long Island many years ago with cellist Gilberto Munguia and my teacher, pianist Constance Keene. I've marveled at that work ever since. It does present a few problems, however. There are limits as to how loudly the cello can play. But there are NO such limits on the piano, and, as the piano part was written by one of the greatest pianists who ever lived. it's hard to restrain oneself when playing such glorious, pianistic writing. On this occasion, Ilya Yakushev played the sonata with Thomas Mesa, a very fine cellist with a busy solo and chamber music career. Though there were occasional places where I wished I could hear the cello a little bit more, Mr. Yakushev, for the most part, was a good partner, playing at reasonable volume.

After the slow beginning, the first movement was played at a moderate tempo. The lush second theme was heard first in the piano and then "dreamily" in the cello. Later, that theme returned, in languid manner on the piano and softer on the cello. The coda was wittily played. The second movement had a gritty beginning, which contrasted later with a very romantic theme. There was also a wonderful section in A-Flat Major.

The third movement is, perhaps, the emotional high point of the sonata. It is warm and expansive, a duet between the two instruments. The balance here was very fine, and the rubato very natural sounding. There was tenderness and passion, and some really wonderful moments.

The fourth movement began energetically, followed by the slow second theme, in the cello. There were huge contrasts in moods and dynamics in this movement. Indeed, these musicians' ability to linger, and enjoy the moment, as well as to rush passionately forward, helped make this an impressive performance.

July 25th, 2019

Tchaikovsky-Pabst: Concert Paraphrase from "Eugene Onegin", Op. 81
Schumann: Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13
Tchaikovsky: Five Pieces from "The Seasons", Op. 37a
February: Carnival
April: Snowdrop
August: Harvest
October: Autumn Song
December: Christmas
Tchaikovsky-Feinberg: Scherzo from Symphony, No. 6

Vladimir Rumyantsev is a 32 year old Russian pianist who studied at the Moscow Conservatory as well as at Mannes College of Music. I was very impressed with his recital a couple of years ago. He is a pianist with a technique that makes just about everything sound easy, a big, beautiful tone, and a natural flair for the Romantic idiom without any eccentricity, or self-indulgence.

The Pabst Paraphrase on Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin had a wonderful buildup to the waltz theme, which was then played with charm, fine nuances, and a variety of timbres. The contrasting section in G Major was finely portrayed, as was the beautiful F Major theme, which later returned in the left hand with a swirling right hand accompaniment.

The theme of the Symphonic Etudes was slow and dignified. The first, march-like variation was vigorous and then followed by the second, with triplets, in which Rumyantsev very effectively varied the dynamics when playing repeats. Other places which stood out for this listener included the third etude, where right hand arpeggios flew around over the left hand melody, the third variation, with the syncopations, the beautiful, soft G-Sharp Minor variation, no. 7, played after a short, meaningful pause, and the powerful conclusion.

Before commenting on the artist's performance of the Seasons I want to thank Joe Patrych for pointing out that some of the pieces performed were not the ones indicated in the program, and Mr. Rumyantsev, for later telling me exactly which ones he played. (They are the ones listed above.)

February (Carnival) plowed along strongly, though it was quieter later on, with a thoughtful last section. April (Snowdrop) was romantic, with longing and coquettishness, and a gorgeous ending. August (Harvest), seemed restless, with a quiet middle section. October (Autumn Song) featured the beautiful interplay of voices and a famous melody which returned, played in hushed manner, at the end. December (Christmas) was an understated waltz with lots of charm.

Samuil Feinberg (1890-1962) is not well-remembered today, but his accomplishments include a terrific recording of the complete Well-Tempered Clavier of Bach, numerous compositions, and this spectacular transcription of the Scherzo movement of the Tchaikovsky Sixth Symphony. I thank Rorianne Schrade for introducing me to it with a brilliant performance at her Weill Hall concert two years ago. Likewise, Mr. Rumyantsev's reading of it on Thursday evening was spectacular! He started at an incredibly fast tempo, yet played with great clarity, including at the first, soft, entrance of the main theme. Near the end, he got even a little bit faster! Both the conclusion of this work, and the audience enthusiasm afterwards were LOUD!

Mr. Rumyantsev played one encore, an elegant and sometimes highly ornamented piece, full of passion and sentimentality from Oscar Peterson's Canadian Suite.

July 27th, 2019

Schubert: Moment Musical in C Major, Op. 94, No. 1
Beethoven: Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 - "Waldstein"
Bach: Prelude and Fugue in G-Sharp Minor from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1
Schubert: Moment Musical in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 94, No. 4
Chopin: Polonaise in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 26, No. 1
Ravel: Ondine from Gaspard de la nuit
Schubert: Moment Musical in A-Flat Major, Op. 94, No. 6
Chopin: Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23
Chopin: Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op. 22
Chopin: Polonaise in A-Flat Major, Op. 53

Does this program make any sense to you? Various Moments Musicaux of Schubert, strewn about amidst works of Beethoven, Chopin and even Ravel? On paper it didn't work for me, either until I heard Massimiliano Ferrati play it. In the first half of the program, which includes the first six works above, he connected the first two without a pause, and then did the same with the last four, going directly from one into the next via tonic, dominant, and mediant relationships. It all worked very effectively, musically, harmonically and dramatically.

Something else occurred to me during this recital, though it may seem unrelated: The memory of Guiomar Novaes's last recital (also at Hunter College) in 1972. Why would the playing of an elderly female Brazilian pianist come to mind when hearing a male Italian pianist who's in his prime? This: Unlike with some pianists who play the instrument flawlessly, but don't seem to "say anything special", a Novaes recital would have some very "special", and memorable musical moments. Such is also the case with a Ferrati recital.

The first Schubert Moment Musical, which began the program, can be played in an earth-bound, heavy manner, but Ferrati, showing from the start his innate musicality, tossed the first phrase into the air. The section with rests was beautifully played, as was the melody that starts in G Major. Everything was just right: pauses, timing, and inflection.

As freely as he played the Schubert, so strictly (rightly so) did he play the more classically oriented first movement of the Waldstein sonata. The second movement was on the fast side, and here he encountered the first of a few memory slips which, however, he always overcame. The theme of the third movement was lovely, and followed by the turbulent first section in triplets. The C Minor section was combative, and the arpeggiation on the way back to the main theme was played in a mysterious manner. The coda was very fast and the glissandi very well played.

The Bach Prelude was contemplative and the Fugue was quiet, deadly serious, emotional, and deep.

The second Moment Musical was played in a meaningfully pokey manner, and the D-Flat Major theme was particularly beautiful.

The C-Sharp Minor Polonaise was wonderful! I was reminded of Cortot, not because Ferrati sounds like Cortot, but because, like the great French pianist, there was never a dull, flat-footed, or inexpressive moment; something was always "happening" musically. Among the features of this performance, following the dramatic beginning, were the beautiful transition into the D-Flat Major section, and the duet between the voices in each hand.

Ferrati's performance of Ravel's Ondine, which "grew out" of the soft ending of the Polonaise, was one of the high points of the recital. This is the kind of piece where an artistic imagination like Ferrati's can do wonders! There was a magical atmosphere, with the right hand "splashing about", and fantastical images in sound. The climactic moment in the middle was enhanced by his leaning on the bass, and quite an effect was made at the end where the bass arpeggios were allowed to evaporate into the final chord. Loud applause followed!

The theme of the A-Flat Major Moment Musical which began the second half sounded gracious, with the phrases acting as if in question and answer mode. There was some gorgeous playing in the D-Flat Major middle section.

Mr. Ferrati began the Chopin G Minor Ballade in a quieter manner than one often hears it, thoughtful, even meditative. This performance included many individual touches, and the pianist showed that he certainly knows when to "raise the temperature" of the music, becoming faster and louder. The recitativo-like section was very effectively done, and the coda was fast, and brilliantly played.

The melody of the Andante Spianato had elegance, and later on there was a very interesting interplay of the voices. The Polonaise was stately, but had charm, with some phrases being tossed into the air. The C Minor section was strong.

The main theme of the concluding A-Flat Major Polonaise was jaunty, but not too loud, By contrast, the E Major chords WERE loud, and the octaves which followed were fast, and became louder when they moved from E Major to E-Flat Major. The "wandering" section, which leads back to the main theme, was lovely and searching. After a slowdown before the main theme, there was a powerful end.

A seemingly tired Mr. Ferrati again had some memory issues in the encore, which was the second Moment Musical of Op. 94. And yet, and yet...............….There were again "special" memorable musical moments. These included a fantastically effective, quiet transition into the F-Sharp Minor section, and a wonderful, pianissimo end.

Joseph Haydn: Sonata in E Minor, Hob. XVI.34
Johannes Brahms: Eight Klavierstücke, Op. 76
Béla Bartók: Piano Sonata, Sz. 80
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piece in D Minor – Preludes, Op. 23: 1. F-Sharp Minor & 10. G-Flat Major – Six Songs, Op. 38: 3. “Daisies” – Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 39: 8. D Minor & 9. D Major
Yi-Nuo Wang (Pianist)

Inevitable to piano festivals is the varying quality of the performances. So when one showcases a brilliant artist, one who has all the qualities that a dedicated listener craves, it is an epiphany. Such was the recital of Wednesday, July 24th by the young Chinese pianist Yi-Nuo Wang, winner of the 2018 Concert Artists Guild Grand Prize.


Ms. Wang’s playing is not new to me; I became aware of her extraordinary musicianship and pianism at last years’ International Keyboard Institute & Festival (IKIF). So it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to this recital, and it exceeded expectations.


Haydn’s piano sonatas are a varied group of works – some rather classical and fleet in both texture and mood, others more serene, still others darker and serious. The E Minor sonata falls firmly into the third group – a work of measured tempestuousness. Ms. Wang exhibited complete control over its variegated sound world, and her beautiful touch and supple phrasing brought new insights. There is a moment near the end of the last movement (a rondo where each restatement of the theme is somewhat varied) where Haydn has a repeated note conclusion of the phrase; never have I heard that moment so beautifully executed and organic to the music.


Brahms piano works fall into an early period, where youthful vigor was evidenced in his sonatas and variations (up to Op. 35), and a late period, where the aforementioned aspects are replaced by an intimacy and poignancy of searing intensity (Opp. 116-119). There are only two groups of piano works between them – the Eight Pieces, Op. 76 and the Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79. In straddling the line between early and late, the Op. 76 (written primarily in 1878) present and demand a wide range of ex

The theme of pianist Geoffrey Burleson’s Tuesday night recital, as he told the audience, was politics. Rather than escape from the immediate historical moment, Burleson wanted to engage it through music.

But the performance in Lang Recital Hall at Hunter College was part of the ongoing International Keyboard Institute Festival, and so the program was directed less to the conceptual or didactic and more toward the programmatic and, of course, the pianistic.

That meant the unfamiliar, the new, and the surprising. The music came from Liszt, Saint-Saëns (via Massenet and Gounod), Roy Harris, and contemporary composers Mary Kouyoumdjian, David Rakowski, and Marc Mellits.

Of the first three names, only Harris immediately stood out as political, and that less in the sense of a governing system than in the social basis of his aesthetic—he wanted to make classical music that was specifically American and thus could speak, without pandering, to the broad population. Burleson played Harris’ Op. 1 Sonata to open the second half, but first filled the opening portion of the concert with 19th century European music.

That meant Liszt’s Apparition No. 1 and the “Lyon” movement of Album d’un voyageur, and two concert paraphrases by Saint-Saëns using, respectively, “La Mort de Thaïs” from Massenet’s opera and Gallia by Gounod.

After a graceful performance of Liszt’s delicate, mystical Apparition, one heard the composer’s leanings through his pictorial “Lyon.” As Burleson pointed out in his program notes, Liszt was not a political composer, and “Lyon” is fundamentally an emotional reaction to the government’s violent suppression of a strike by Lyonnais textile workers. More passion than politics, it is a mix of sincerity and showmanship, full of fanfares and octave runs but without nuance—this is music that launched a thousand silent film accompaniments. The need to shout at the top of one’s lungs tripped up Burleson at times.

The shape of the Saint-Saëns set was similar, yet the results more sublime. The mysticism of the Thaïs paraphrase came like vapor out of the famous “Méditation,” leading to Gounod’s reaction to the destruction of the Franco-Prussian War.

The original, haunting choral work was transformed by Saint-Saëns into a somber, focused lamentation. Burleson had the right measure of this, channeling the emotions with a focus that gave them a richness and cutting edge that his Liszt lacked.

Harris’s sonata is both typical and atypical of the composer’s work. There are the rich, shining chords stacked one on another and the near-genteel formal devices. But where Harris’s music is typically organized around extended melodic lines, the sonata is more like a collage. It’s up to the musician to string everything together with phrasing and mood, and Burleson gave the music a powerful sense of modernity, earthy human feelings heard through a prism of disoriented psychology. This underrated work offers an eloquent experience in artistic thinking from between the World Wars.

Kouyoumdjian’s Aghavni (Doves), from 2009, came out of a related historical period, the Armenian genocide. According to Burleson’s program, the piece described the lives of a group of women undergoing that horrific experience. One was reminded of Adorno’s thoughts on poetry after Auschwitz—that standard language is incapable of capturing and expressing the depths of human depravity.

It’s to the composer’s credit that the three-movement work is not only effective but absolutely beautiful.

Played with deep sympathy by Burleson, the music mixes folk-like melodies with modern harmonic structures. This is what Bartók did, but Kouyoumdjian’s voice is all her own, with a surface gentleness that disguises an iron fist of craft and feeling. Her Aghavni impressed the listener more deeply than anything else on the concert.

Rakowski’s Riccio (Prelude #43) and Ain’t Got No Right, For Left-Hand Solo (Etude #67), and Mellits’ Etude No. 2, “Defensive Chili,” were as good-natured as the titles implied, and even more demanding as “Lyon.” Each was a study in pianistic prestidigitation, and Burleson’s strong, precise left-hand in Etude #67 and his coordination of the mind-boggling syncopations of Mellit’s Etude were exciting and great fun.

Best of all was the pianist’s encore, his own Tatum-esque study on Wayne Shorter’s classic jazz composition, “Footprints.” Burleson took the haunting bass line and harmonies and turned them into an unusual fast ballad, and his jazz phrases were just right.

Bach: Partita No. 5 in G Major, BWV 829
Bach: Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 903
Chopin: Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-Flat Major, Op. 61

A long time friend (60 years!) of IKIF Director Jerome Rose, the pianist Jeffrey Siegel studied with at least three very famous teachers, Rudolf Ganz, Rosina Lhevinne, and Ilona Kabos, and has had a busy career ever since. His Keyboard Conversations, in which he speaks about different works, and then plays them in entirety, are useful to, as he says, "gently inoculate" those who have no musical background with information to help them enjoy the program more. But they also provide interesting details about the music for those who are more "at home" in a concert setting. His ideas are very well thought out, detailed, and expressed. And as a pianist he is very physical, strong, and passionate.

Mr. Siegel said he liked to program music of Bach and Chopin together as they both turned popular dances into great art.

After speaking about, and demonstrating parts of the Bach Partita he began the Prelude with great energy. The Allemande was stately and the Courante vigorous. The Sarabande was not very slow and rather loud. The Tempo di Minuetto was witty, and in the Passepied he focused on bringing out the different voices. The concluding Gigue was gruff, then delicate, and had great trills.

I was amazed to learn that the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue was only published in 1802, many years after Bach's death. Mr. Siegel told a story about Bach's returning home from a trip in 1720 and learning of the death of his first wife. Mr. Siegel speculated that parts of this work may reflect Bach's emotional reaction to her death. But as the exact date of its composition is unknown, one can't be sure if this is true.

He then gave an intense reading of the work. Some of the arpeggiation in the Fantasy was faster than I'd ever heard it, but the first theme of the Fugue, which he described as "coming out of the depths of despair" was played very beautifully.

Turning to the Polonaise Fantaisie, Mr. Siegel spoke of the various sections, ie the introduction, the polonaise rhythm, and the nocturne-like theme. His performance of it afterwards was thoughtful and had both calm and turbulence.

After the performance, he took questions from the audience. It was a very interesting way to spend an hour, and I can see the value in this kind of presentation, especially for those who want to learn more about the composers and their music.

July 20th, 2019

Beethoven: Sonata No. 12 in A-Flat Major, Op. 26
Chopin: Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35
Chopin: Ballade No. 2 in F Major, Op. 36
Chopin: Waltz in A-Flat Major, Op. 69, No. 1
Nocturne in D-Flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2
Tarantella in A-Flat Major, Op. 43
Debussy: Ballade slave
Debussy: Valse Romantique
Debussy: Nocturne
Debussy: Tarantelle styrienne

Yuan Sheng is a pianist whom I have heard many times over the last 15 years. He is a musician of sensitivity, refinement and culture. He studied both in his native China and here at the Manhattan School of Music. Nowadays, in addition to his concert and recording career, he is a professor at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music. Those students are lucky to have him!

The first half of the program consisted of the "funeral march" sonatas of Beethoven and Chopin.

The first movement of the Beethoven went along at a good pace, and was thoughtful and elegant. The second movement was quite fast, sprightly, with rollicking eighth note passages. The funeral march movement (the third) was surprisingly fast paced, but ominous. In the finale he brought out the "spilling forward" motion of the first theme, made the C Minor section exciting, and brought out accents and syncopation.

The first movement of the Chopin sonata was passionate, with a huge, but never ugly sound. Its second theme was played eloquently in the recapitulation. The second movement was dramatic, and there was a wonderful contrast in the middle section where the pianist brought out the elegant tenor theme. The third movement funeral march (Why is the third movement always the funeral march?) was relentless and threatening. The D-Flat Major middle theme was simply played, and the return to the funeral march was powerful. The fourth movement is probably the most enigmatic piece of music Chopin ever wrote. It is supposed to be murky but for the first half of it Mr. Sheng used so much pedal that I almost couldn't recognize anything.

He began the second half with the Second Ballade of Chopin, which was expressive, intimate and had beautiful shadings, alternating with the powerful A Minor material. Without pause he then went into the A-Flat Major Waltz, which was terrific! It had charm, originality and some additional, very effective ornamentation. The D-Flat Major Nocturne seemed a bit fast, but also featured extra ornamentation, a magical effect as the piece went into E-Flat Minor, and a gorgeous ending. The Tarantella was energetic, and great fun!

The Debussy group with which Mr. Sheng concluded the official program included both well-known and lesser-known works. The Ballade slave, which I don't recall having heard before, was nostalgic, lovely, and spacious. The Waltz was delightful, with its quirky rhythm and splashes of C major arpeggios. The nocturne did not sound much like a nocturne to me, but was exotic, had a lovely melody, and was more reflective near the end. The beginning of the concluding Tarantelle was fast, light and restless. The theme returned later, louder, in octaves, and there were pungent accents. It ended with a wonderful, very big sound.

Mr. Sheng played one encore, the Berceuse of Chopin. It seemed a bit on the fast side, but was sensitive, and the right hand conveyed the desired magical, and glistening effect.

Vadym Kholodenko - IKIF
21st International Keyboard Institute and Festival
Merkin Hall
July 18th, 2019

Mozart: Fantasia in C Minor, K. 475
Beethoven: Six Bagatelles, Op. 126
Beethoven: Rondo a capriccio, Op. 129
Godowsky: Selections From Studies on Chopin Etudes
Tchaikovsky: Piano Sonata in C-Sharp Minor, Op. Posth. 80

Vadym Kholodenko was the 2013 Cliburn Competition winner, and has also won many other awards. He is a 33 year old pianist originally from Ukraine, and has a busy international career.

The Mozart Fantasia with which he started the program began in a thoughtful manner, with very individual phrasing and pacing. The section before the return of the original theme sounded very improvisatory, and there was a dramatic conclusion.

Of the Beethoven Bagatelles, the composer's last major piano work, I especially liked Kholodenko's playing of the two that seem to be "slow movements", namely the third and sixth. The tempi seemed "just right" and the expressivity was very fine, for example with the simmering tension in the second half of No. 6, where that piece visits A-Flat Major. The other Bagatelles seemed rather slower than one often hears them and yet, there were some very interesting effects as a result. For instance, No. 5 was so slow it seemed ruminative, in an intriguing way, and the section after the double bar, in C Major, was very beautiful.

Beethoven's Op. 129, also known as "The Rage Over a Lost Penny" can be played like a steamroller, barreling ahead. That can be convincing if done well, but so was Mr. Kholodenko's approach, which was not so very fast but featured humor, terrific clarity, and original ideas.

Chopin, in his etudes, pushed out the boundaries of existing piano technique and Godowsky, with his etudes, each based on one or more of the Chopin etudes, stretched them out even further. It is a huge accomplishment to be able to play these Godowsky works, let alone as persuasively as did Mr. Kholodenko. Interestingly, it was not "Sturm und Drang" that impressed, but the pianist's wonderful workmanship and sensitive musicianship.

I was sorry that the program merely said that Mr. Kholodenko would play "selections" from these etudes, as opposed to listing them individually. Not knowing all of these pieces inside out I was, at least, able to identify one Chopin etude each one was based on, but wished I'd had a "Godowsky GPS" to tell me exactly "where I was." The first four were largely based on the first four etudes of Chopin's Op. 10. Then came one based on the F Major Etude, No. 8. That was followed by one based on the Revolutionary Etude, and finally there was one that came from the Butterfly Etude.

Particularly impressive were the three that Godowsky composed for the left hand alone, No. 3, transposed into D-Flat Major, the end of which was particularly beautiful, No. 4, in the original key (C-Sharp Minor), and the Revolutionary, transposed up half a step to C-Sharp Minor.

Not to overstate a point, but performances like Mr. Kholodenko's of these etudes were, for me, among the high points of IKIF this year, and one of the justifications for having the Festival!

The Tchaikovsky Sonata with which he concluded is an early work I had never heard before. Though not as great as his later works it is very interesting to hear what he was producing in his last year of conservatory. And one probably couldn't get a better introduction to it than Mr. Kholodenko's wonderful performance.

The first movement is tempestuous some of the time, and in a romantic "haze" at other times. The second movement has a simple but elegantly stated theme which returns later with very quiet ornamentation, and there is a surprise ending which is pianissimo. The third movement is lively, shimmering and mischievous in C Major, with a contrasting trio section in A Minor. The finale is brilliant and difficult, though apparently easy for Mr. Kholodenko, who produced a huge sound at the end.

The first encore was a Scarlatti sonata which was so perfect in every way that I wish I had a recording of it! It is not one of the fastest or hardest Scarlatti sonatas but this performance had everything: calm, elegance, incredible articulation and delicacy, and subtlety.

Mr. Kholodenko played one more encore, which, I was told, was a Round Dance by Purcell. To my ears, it had a Spanish flavor, and was based on a repeated chord progression with constant sotto voce variations in the melody. It was delightful!

Mao Fujita - IKIF
21st International Keyboard Institute and Festival
Lang Recital Hall at Hunter College

July 19th, 2019

Mozart: Sonata in C Major, K. 330
Liszt: Transcendental Etude No. 10 in F Minor, S, 139/10
Rachmaninoff: Etude-tableau in E-Flat Minor, Op. 30, No. 5
Tchaikovsky: Dumka in C Minor, Op. 59
Chopin: Four Scherzi

Mao Fujita is a 21 year old Japanese pianist who recently won the Silver Medal at the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition. He's terrific!

Arthur Rubinstein used to speak of the connection he felt with his audience as he played. I was reminded of this because Fujita's communication, through his playing, is so direct and natural.

The first movement of the Mozart Sonata, which began the program was on the fast side, fleet, but with subtle shadings, great articulation, and warmth. The second movement was straight-forward but finely nuanced. The F Minor section had a hushed quality. The finale was sprightly, vigorous, and light-hearted.

In the Liszt Etude he lingered over the melody, had wonderful pacing, especially in the slow expressive section, and a sizzling, fast conclusion.

The Rachmaninoff Etude-tableau featured smoldering tension, dramatic adjustments in volume, a slow, strong buildup to the climax, and a beautiful soft, epilogue.

In the Tchaikovsky Dumka he played the C Minor section softly and wistfully, while the energetic E-Flat Major section had high spirits and virtuosity.

The second half of the program consisted of the four Scherzi of Chopin. Sometimes people play them one right after the other without pause, but this would not have been possible as Mr. Fujita received enthusiastic applause after each one!

The First Scherzo had dash and verve, but he played the slow parts longingly, and he figured out very effectively just how much slower this should be than the fast parts, because everything seemed to work organically. The end was hysterically, and very excitingly fast.

The Second Scherzo featured nice flexibility in the pacing and some blistering finger work in the middle section.

In the Third Scherzo he dispatched the octaves quickly, and in the meno mosso section gave the chorale-like chords, which are followed by the equally long quasi-arpeggiation an interesting question and answer quality.

The Fourth Scherzo was playful, with wonderful splashes of sound, a soulfully played melody in the C-Sharp Minor section, and a powerful end.

Mr. Fujita played one encore, which was unfamiliar to me. It was a lovely, sentimental piece which was operatic in nature and later featured exquisite inner voices. After the concert I consulted with my always reliable RIA (Repertoire Identification Authority, also known as Joe Patrych) and was informed that it was the Meditation, Op. 72, No. 5 by Tchaikovsky.

Though he's a distinguished scholar and author, Alan Walker has no airs about himself, or his achievements. Seeing him as I entered Lang Hall for this event, I congratulated him on his wonderful new biography, "Fryderyk Chopin - A Life and Times" and told him I would have brought it in for an autograph were it not so heavy. "Well, it makes a good doorstop!" he said.

For a fascinating hour we learned quite a lot about the life of a scholar, as he discussed his life and work with Jerome Rose, who asked many cogent questions. Among the things we learned:

1) It's a real problem that very rich people buy up priceless manuscripts, which scholars are then no longer able to access and study, and

2) The rituals of scholarly work at a place like the Morgan Library may include temporarily surrendering your important personal documents for the time you're in the building, as well as washing your hands and wearing gloves, because perspiration is harmful to the manuscripts.

Dr. Walker is originally from England, was an announcer for the BBC for ten years and now lives in Canada. He has written 14 books, but says he never goes back and rereads them later as he thinks he continues to improve as a writer, and wouldn't be happy with them anymore.

When asked why, after spending 25 years researching and writing his highly lauded three volume biography of Liszt, he then spent ten years on the Chopin biography, he said it was because of something like postpartum depression. "I needed a big, new project. Being a WASP, I feel guilty when I'm not being productive. Unless I'm working, I can't enjoy pleasure."

He added "I'm a slow writer. If I can produce 200 usable words a day I'm glad. And I hate computers. I write everything in long hand."

But why write about Chopin?

"I started playing the piano at eight and was rather good by the time I was ten, playing Chopin waltzes and mazurkas. So I've been interested in him all my life."

A trip to Poland with a colleague yielded so much new information that he decided he had wasted the previous two years of work. He also picked up a virus while there which cost him 20% of the hearing in one ear. "Such are the sacrifices I've made for Chopin!" he said.

Dr. Walker wanted this biography to focus on three different facets of Chopin:

1) Telling the story of his life,

2) Explaining the historical situation and context of his world, and

3) The music.

"Where did his genius come from?" asked Mr. Rose.

"That's not answerable" said Dr. Walker, going on to mention that Chopin, this amazing pianist, and composer of piano music, had only one piano teacher, who was really a violinist, and the lessons stopped when he was twelve years old. His teacher did "feed" him a lot of Bach and Mozart, and he always hugely admired those composers. By contrast, he considered most of the Beethoven sonatas with which he was familiar "vulgar."

Chopin's favorite instrument was the human voice, not the piano, said Dr. Walker, and he considered piano playing like a mode of speech.

Every piece he wrote started out as an improvisation. Then he struggled to improve it. Being a perfectionist he suffered greatly as he went through this process. But 95% of his compositions are still in the standard repertory, perhaps a higher percentage than that of any other composer.

Unlike Liszt and Czerny, Chopin was not a "finger equalizer." He believed each finger had its own individual characteristics, and he thought of the third and fourth fingers as "Siamese twins." Dr. Walker added that the A Minor Etude, Op. 10, No. 2, is the only piece for which Chopin wrote a fingering for every note.

Chopin was unable to compose without a piano. When he went with Georges Sand to Mallorca he had already been paid 1000 francs in advance for the 24 preludes he was to write. But he wrote only four of them before the trip, and did not get the piano he was promised till just three weeks before they were to leave again, making him miserable.

Although he often played in the homes of the aristocracy, both when he was young in Poland, and later, when he lived in France, Chopin only gave about twenty public performances. And because he was physically weak, people in a large hall couldn't hear him if they sat far from the piano.

He became a teacher because he needed the income, and was very well paid, getting 20 francs per lesson, as opposed to 3 or 4 francs, like most teachers in Paris. (Then again, wouldn't any of us today be willing to pay an astronomical amount to play for Chopin?!) But much of his income was spent on doctors, as he was constantly ill.

Two things that hurt scholarship after his death were the destruction of many of his manuscripts, and his piano in the Polish Revolution of 1863, and the fact that Georges Sand destroyed the letters he had written her.

Although Mendelssohn, Schumann and Liszt admired him the reverse was not always true. Chopin all but despised Liszt's music, and when Schumann dedicated his Kreisleriana to Chopin, Chopin said that what he liked was the design on the cover of the score (!).

Dr. Walker said that whereas John Field invented the nocturne, Chopin immortalized it, and that people sometimes did not hold Chopin's music in such high esteem because many of his works are short. He did not write symphonies, for instance. But the musical quality of many of these short works is higher than, for example, the symphonies of a lesser composer.

"Who was Chopin?" asked Jerome Rose, near the end of the session.

Though he couldn't give an exact answer to this, Alan Walker mentioned that Arthur Rubinstein said that when he heard Chopin's music, he felt "at home."

I wonder how many other pianists, and music lovers feel the same way?!

July 19th, 2019

Beethoven: Sonata in E-Flat Major, Op. 81a "Les Adieux"
Copland: Piano Variations
Ravel: Sonatine
Debussy: L'isle joyeuse
Rachmaninoff: Etudes-Tableaux in E-Flat Minor and E-Flat Major, Op. 33
Rachmaninoff: Prelude in D Major, Op. 23, No. 4
Rachmaninoff: Prelude in B-Flat Major, Op. 23, No. 2
Chopin; Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58

According to the program notes, Ann Schein made her first recordings in 1958, and performed at the White House in 1963. If Wikipedia is accurate, she will celebrate her 80th birthday later this year. One might not expect such a person to play a big, demanding program which, having started a bit after the 8:30 official time, only reached intermission at 10 o'clock! But Ann Schein, whose very fine performance of Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze I remembered from perhaps ten years ago, still puts together programs that no one would consider easy, and plays them very well, indeed. She does not always use the fastest tempi, but neither does she play too slowly. She knows exactly what works for her AND for the music.

The program began with Beethoven's Les Adieux Sonata, and I was reminded of her wonderful musicianship. After the challenging first movement, the slow movement was emotional and expressive, and the last movement was strong, with a variety of shadings.

Her reading of the Ravel Sonatine featured a lovely first movement with shimmering sounds, charm and warmth in the second movement, and SPARKS wonderfully tossed off in the finale.

With hardly a pause, she launched into Debussy's L'isle joyeuse, which was full of mystery, playfulness and ecstasy.

The first Rachmaninoff Etude Tableau had the contrasts of lightness and apprehension, and the second one was very energetic.

The D Major Prelude by the same composer was not at all sentimental but emphasized the interaction of the different voices. The brilliant B-Flat Prelude was powerful and elegant.

For this listener, the most impressive part of the first half of the program was Ms. Schein's performance of the Copland Variations, which, she said, she recorded long ago. It is not "lovable" or beautiful, and is an early work of Copland, dating from 1930. It is harsh, dissonant and craggy, and based on motives that sometimes turn around on each other, and answer each other. The composer's use of rhythm is as important to how the variations work as the notes themselves. There is also some very tricky passage work. It is a piece of architecture in sound, and Ms. Schein was colossally successful in conveying this.

Such is Ms. Schein's popularity with her fans that she arrived onstage to begin the second half of the program, which consisted of the B Minor Sonata of Chopin, and was greeted with cheers.

The first movement was strong, not too fast but spacious, and showed her understanding of the composer's idiom. The second movement was played at a more daring tempo, with the middle section, appropriately, somewhat slower. In the third movement she played the main theme rather straight, and the middle section was strong and compelling. The finale was played at a good, though not very fast tempo. It was intense, featured impressive passage work, and had a powerful ending.

Before playing the first encore Ms. Schein said "I don't know how you can listen to any more!" and then explained she would play the A-Flat Nouvelle Etude of Chopin because her teacher had given it to her to improve her ability with two against three rhythms, and because it's a favorite of her husband.

After coming out onstage once or twice more, to acknowledge applause, she announced "I haven't attempted this in awhile but you'll know what it is!" and launched into the B-Flat Minor Prelude of Chopin, one of the fastest and hardest of them. This time she pulled out all the stops. It sizzled!

New York
Ida K. Lang Recital Hall, Hunter College
07/19/2019 -
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Sonata No. 10 in C Major, K. 300h [330]
Franz Liszt: Transcendental Etude No. 10 in F minor, S.139/10
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Etude-tableau in E Flat minor, Op. 39 No. 5
Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky: Dumka in C minor, Op. 59
Frédéric Chopin: Four Scherzi, Op. 20, Op. 31, Op. 39 & Op. 54
Mao Fujita (Pianist)

The International Keyboard Institute and Festival has two faces. First is a concentrated list of well-known pianists, people like Vladimir Feltsman, Jeffrey Swann, Ann Schein and the Festival organizer, Jerome Rose. Second is the presentation of younger pianists.


Not students by any means. These youngsters like George Li and last night’s Mao Fujita have won many important awards in their burgeoning careers, but they are hardly household names. This, though, hardly precludes full houses, audiences even on stage.


Such was the case yesterday for the New York debut of Mao Fujita, winner of the Silver Prize at the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition. And while only in his very early 20’s, the pianist showed the confidence of artists twice that age.


His recital was that of a performer who knew his music, knew his technique, and obviously enjoyed most of the pieces he chose. What he lacked–and which he will hopefully gain over the next few years–is individuality.


The great and near-great artists can take an early piece like the Mozart K. 330 Sonata, soothing their way past the classically wrought outer movements (as did Mr. Fujita), but give special treatment to the Andante cantabile. This is a movement with strange modulations, sudden tragic moments, Mr. Fujita gave it a careful reading, yet the feeling was inflexible. Literally an A-Plus. Spiritually, dismal.


The two Etudes by Liszt and Rachmaninoff were given equally respectable performances The Liszt F Minor Transcendental Etude was rushed, agitated, Mr Fujita’s fingers moving headlong to the finales, yet one was left with speed more than emotion.


Ditto the fifth Opus 39 Etude-Tableau by Rachmaninoff. It takes more than audacity to tackle any of these pieces, and Mr. Fujita was digitally prepared. Yet in the long run, this was a show of ferocity, not ferocity itself.


The only relatively unfamiliar work was the Dumka by Tchaikovsky, and while Mr. Fujita was not terribly Slavic, that dance has as many cadenzas and semi-cadenzas as a sonata, with double-octaves galore, all of which had superb preparation and execution.


The second half was an even greater challenge. All four Chopin scherzos. With a more established pianist, one could sit back, forget about adjectives and simply enjoy the startling beauty and pathos together. Does the Second Scherzo sometimes fall apart structurally? Forget it! Is the B Minor Scherzo dependent on the ferocious coda for its success? Not important. There’s far too much meat in between.


To his credit Mao Fujita played up thunderously in all the works. In fact, it was damned good playing. The word “good”, though, hardly does credit to Chopin’s greatness.


He opened that First Scherzo a modified shriek, played the middle Polish Christmas carol fluidly, finished with fluent (if hardly furious) coda. The Second showed more masterly piano-playing. That is, it was fine piano, it was not masterly Chopin.


I doubt if this excellent young technician had any nervousness for his first works (though nerves might have offered more personality, more memorability). His performance of the last two Scherzi was more outgoing, more interesting. Yet I had to compare the Third Scherzo wit a performance heard four days ago by Jeffrey Biegel. Here, the splendid chorale was contrasted with color, with variation of the falling arpeggios.


Mao Fujita played them as written, errorless, pleasant. Like all his music yesterday, Mr. Fujita offered notes, measures, phrases as if on an endless Urtext, as if, in his care on the keys, he had distanced himself from the meaning of the music.

This summer’s International Keyboard Institute Festival—a combination of training sessions for student pianists and concerts by the Institute’s faculty—opened on Monday, and Thursday night featured a Masters Series Concert from Van Cliburn winner Vadym Kholodenko at Merkin Hall.

There were peaks and valleys to the evening, related to Kholodenko’s programming choices. A passionate musician with an inherent muscularity and weight to his touch, he plays the music of composers like Liszt and Tchaikovsky with great color, poetry, and verve, and there were some powerful examples of that during the concert.

But there were also some misfits and misfires, starting right at the beginning with Mozart’s Fantasia in C minor. It was clear Kholodenko admired K. 475 and appreciated its flights of fantasy and pianistic challenges. But he and the music seemed to talk past each other, sharing a common language but not appreciating each other’s idioms. The pianist’s use of dynamics, rubato, and the way he shaped phases sounded lugubrious, and he didn’t bring enough brightness to the warm, major key stretches to give the dark interpretation he favored a feeling of satisfaction.

At his best Kholodenko exudes a sense of excitement that comes straight out of his personality, and the remainder of the first half—Beethoven’s Op. 126 Bagatelles and Op. 129 Capriccio—saw him as his best.

The Bagatelles sounded exceptionally spontaneous. No matter the tempo or tonality, Kholodenko seemed to be discovering each new note and idea, with every moment full of surprise while fulfilling the complex logic of late Beethoven. The slower Bagatelles, like the graceful G minor and the serene E-flat major, were deeply expressive, while the faster ones were thrilling. Pianist and composer sounded as one, the performance closer to an experience of absolute improvisation than one will ever find in the classical repertoire.

Kholodenko played the “Rage against a lost penny” Capriccio with such precipitous muscularity and high spirits that it could have been an encore.

The second half had the same variable quality. First was a set of Leopold Godowsky’s Studies on Chopin Etudes. One felt the choice had more to do with the Institute’s mission than aesthetic imperatives—these are pieces that demand and show off technique, and while they impress the listener with the pianist’s skills, for that same reason they are exhausting to listen to for extended periods.

And it was an exhausting set. Kholodenko began with the Op 10, No. 1—the original designation from Chopin—which Godowsky turned into an exercise in speed, articulation, and power. Kholodenko had plenty of each, but the extended duration, constant fortissimo, and the mass that the pianists applied quickly wearied the ear. Kholodenko played several of the left-hand adaptations, including No. 6 and No. 22, both in C-sharp minor, and his hand seemed to weary as well, showing some raggedness as the music progressed.

Kholodenko finished up in more comfortable territory, with Tchaikovsky’s posthumous student work, the (again) C-sharp minor Piano Sonata. Though it has an ungainly form, the sonata is also full of lovely, expressive music, and the Allegra viva scherzo is the source for the Scherzo movement in the composer’s Symphony No. 1.

As with the Bagatelles, the pianist showed a deep connection to the music, and the opening Allegro con fuoco was poised and involved, Kholodenko playing with conviction and purpose, his technique here used to say something.

His two quick encores (Scarlatti and Purcell) were, in this context, a surprise. These short, light contrapuntal pieces showed a delicate and wistful side to his artistry that was utterly charming.

New York
Merkin Concert Hall, Kaufman Music Center
07/16/2019 -
Ludwig van Beethoven: 32 Variations in C Minor, WoO 80 – Andante Favori in F Major, WoO 57 – Sonata in C Major “Waldstein”, Opus 53
Robert Schumann: Vogel als Prophet, from Waldszenen, Opus 82 – Carnaval, Opus 9
George Li (Pianist)

Talk about your Augean challenges! The Herculean young pianist at last night’s recital for the International Keyboard Festival had an auditorium packed with families and children of all ages, each of them equipped with camera-phones, gossip, query, giggle and disquiet. Yet from the first sforzando C Minor chord to the very last resounding notes of Carvaval, the zoo was not only hushed, but they were mesmerized. George Li didn’t play like Orpheus, but his Steinway managed to calm the potentially savage beasts.


Two other mighty challenges remained. Specifically Ludwig van Beethoven and Robert Schumann. For those two giants, the 24-year-old Boston-born Harvard graduate plunged into (what Joanthan Biss called) “the unknowable”, offering a recital which at times was overpowering.


Then again, George Li has been winning awards and performing since he was ten years old. Nothing seems to bother him. His confidence and temperament go hand in hand–literally–with his emotional understanding. And those emotions were translated to us for the full recital. Albeit with a few caveats.


Certainly Mr. Li’s two hands knew how to plumb the depths. The Prestissimo finale of the Beethoven “Waldstein” was child’s play, the double-octave measures of Schumann’s Carnaval were dashed with glissandi worthy of a Stradivarius. If Mr. Li meant to impress us, there was no problem. We were suitably impressed.


What, though, did he do with the music? The smash-and-trills starting Beethoven’s early 32 Variations continued through to very last variation. We have all heard them as barely disguised exercises, or the youthful Ludwig showing off his chops. George Li never allowed youth (his own or the composer’s) to interrupt anger, violence, a torpedo-like ten minutes where the more delicate sections were like disruptions to an ultra-sturm, hyper-drang performance.


One might have missed the tonal variety, one might have asked for breath to go with the breadth. And while variations changed, one felt underneath an inelasticity. Yet Mr. Li succeeded in something more impressive: He literally tore the Classical veneer from the composer and gave us a mid-19th Century drama.


The pianist could have given us the complete original “Waldstein” next. For the work preceding the sonata, Favored Andante, was supposed to be the second movement. (Beethoven reluctantly removed it when told the work was too long, substituting perhaps the most idyllic “introduction.”). Not to waste a good theme, he sold the Andante Favori, and it became a favorite for all 19th Century budding pianists. Mr. Li gave a relatively limpid performance–until the middle, when Mr. Li opened up the emotional fireworks as the technical challenges opened.


Obviously for a pianist with such a dynamic vision, the “Waldstein” was an exemplary choice. If he played it with an obsessive tension, one couldn’t fault the effort. Again, this was faultless finger work, and Mr. Li–while not exaggerating any tempo–went headlong into Beethoven’s first movement. He had no inclination to imitate instruments in the development, he obviously saw Beethoven as the Titan, and that Allegro was Titanic. The second movement can be played with philosophical profundity, but perhaps this is reserved for older players. Mr. Li gave it a dreamy respite, but that dream came to the end with a simply terrific finale.


The demand was changing the charming theme into a whirlwind finale, and Mr. Li conquered the challenge so carefully that the hell-for-leather final measures seemed inevitable.


After the intermission and a lyrical short Schumann work, Mr. Li played Carnaval with the temperament and attitude of a totally different player. The Beethoven had left us amazed, aroused and (let’s admit it) somewhat discomfited by the ceaseless tension. Carnaval was as engaging, as varied and as satisfying as its title.


This writer once wrote that a certain pianist played Mussorgsky’s Pictures beautifully, but that he obviously had never been to an art gallery. George Li played Carnaval with his usual perfection–yet one feels he knew each of the real and fictional characters depicted by the composer.


Never averse to leaving large pauses between each movement, he gave a large packed ballroom for the Valse noble, retarding the notes as if the nobles were bowing. He contrasted Eusebius and Florestan like two swordsmen ready for battle, his Chopin was yearning, and the final March was not only triumphant, but Mr. Li accented that wondrous left-hand descant.


At the end, after two encores, one realized that George Li, no longer a wunderkind, is now a player of importance. One hopes he never slackens his mighty picture of Beethoven–but one personally also hopes that with Robert Schumann, he broadens (if that is possible) an incandescently spacious panorama.

Jerome Rose - IKIF
21st International Keyboard Institute and Festival
Merkin Hall
July 14th, 2019

Chopin: Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-Flat Major, Op. 61
Schumann: Kreisleriana, Op. 16
Brahms: Sonata No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 5


Pianist Jerome Rose founded the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in 1999 with his wife, Julie Kedersha, who is the Festival Director. It has been a significant cultural institution in the musical life of New York ever since, offering two weeks of master classes, at least two dozen concerts, and a competition. For many years it was in residence at the old, lamented home of Mannes College on the Upper West Side. In recent years it took place at Hunter College. This year most events are again at Hunter College, but some recitals, such as Mr. Rose's, take place at Merkin Hall. The artists who perform there range from brilliant young up and coming pianists, to musicians in the prime of their careers, to seasoned masters.

Jerome Rose, who traditionally gives the opening recital of the Festival, was the Gold Medal winner at the 1961 Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition and went on to a long and distinguished career as a pianist and pedagogue which continues with concerts, new recordings and master classes here and abroad. Now approaching his 81st birthday he still plays with strength and deep conviction. If there is occasionally some rushing and blurring there is also much beauty and artistry in his performances. And he never shrinks from playing big, demanding works.

The beginning of the Chopin Polonaise emphasized sensitivity and tonal beauty. The slow B Major section was played a bit faster than one sometimes hears it, but was effective. The conclusion was powerful.

Schumann's Kreisleriana had appropriately frenzied sections and calmer, slower ones. The third and fifth pieces were playful. The final piece was particularly fine, played with very good control, and with the emotions of the various parts effectively portrayed.

Mr. Rose did much of his finest playing in the second half, which consisted of Brahms' mammoth Third Sonata. There was much in it that reminded me of the wonderful Rubinstein interpretation of this work I heard so many years ago. (And, indeed, Mr. Rose was also hugely impressed by how Rubinstein played it, as he told me after the concert.)

The first movement was big, broad, powerful, and well, Brahmsian, in the best sense of the word. The second movement featured a thoughtful sounding middle section in D-Flat Major, and a beautifully played coda.

The rollicking and difficult to play third movement (I sometimes wonder if its theme isn't the most memorable thing in the whole sonata?!) was well-paced, and the contrasting trio section was very fine, indeed. The fourth movement was thoughtful and subdued but also dramatic. The beginning of the finale had daring, charm and spirit. The chorale section was spacious and wonderfully played. Mr. Rose brought the work to a powerful conclusion.

Jerome Rose played one encore, an eloquent and individual reading of the Chopin work from Op, 25 sometimes known as the "Cello Etude," because of its wonderful tenor melody. He then thanked everyone for coming to this first event of this year's Festival, and said he hoped to see everyone at many more of them.

20 years old and stronger than ever! The International Keyboard Institute and Festival (IKIF) presents outstanding concerts, masterclasses,
and lectures at Hunter College every year in the last two weeks of July. After the enjoyable time I spent last year (N/D 2017), I anticipated
this milestone year to the point of tracking their schedule, artists, and programs for several months. Nothing I attended was less than
excellent; and, like last year, there were several recitals that rank with the best I have ever witnessed.

For the nearly 100 students that come from all over the world to study and compete, their lessons and masterclasses are augmented by
interacting with and hearing world class pianists perform every day. The masterclasses and 5 PM recitals (Prestige Series) were held in
Hunter’s Lang Concert Hall; the evening concerts (Masters Series) were heard in the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse. The 14 Kaye
recitals were only $20 each ($200 for the whole festival), and the Lang ones were $10 ($100 for a festival pass).

There were 26 concerts and 18 masterclasses over two weeks, along with a competition that awarded a $10,000 first prize to Martin
Garcia Garcia (22, Spain) and an invitation to return next year for a Masters Series recital. The other three finalists were each awarded
$5,000: Yinuo Wang (22, China), Alexandre Lory (about 25, French), and Adam Balogh (21, Hungarian), who will play recitals next year in the Prestige Series. At a recital by last year’s first prize winner, Dina Ivanova played an elegant Mozart Sonata No. 12 and Liszt’s solo version of Totentanz plus Stravinsky’s difficult Petrouchka movements, showing that she belongs in the company of the other Masters Series artists.

Repertoire this year ranged from Bach to Lowell Liebermann. Most works were from the classical and romantic periods, with Beethoven,
Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt heard most often. Debussy, who died 100 years ago this year, was also on a number of programs.
Given the vast quantity of piano music played at this festival, it was surprising (and probably owing mainly to the efforts of Festival Director
Julie Kedersha) that there were so few duplications. Piano sonatas abounded, with 11 by Beethoven and one or two each by Mozart,
Haydn, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Prokofieff, and Ives. Besides the Concord Sonata and Liebermann’s
Gargoyles, 20th-Century composers included Messiaen, Takemitsu, Tania Leon, Tudor Dumitrescu, James P Johnson, and Art Tatum,
though modern works were less numerous.

Festival Founder and Director Jerome Rose, now an octogenarian and still indefatigable, performed the opening concert as usual. He also was present for nearly every event over the next two weeks. This year he played Beethoven’s Sonata No. 30, Schumann’s Humoreske, and three pieces from Liszt’s Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses, including one of the most exciting ‘Funerallies’ I’ve ever heard. He played one encore (Hungarian Rhapsody 13) before thanking the audience for their attendance and inviting them to return during the festival.

There were also pre-concert talks. Two or three individuals gathered at a small table downstage for at least half an hour. One of the
participants was the scheduled pianist for the following evening’s recital, which worked as a wonderful advertisement for the artist and the
program. There was a discussion of both the current and next evening’s programs, often with examples played and the opportunity for
those in the audience to ask questions.

IKIF was the place to hear Van Cliburn gold medalist Yekwon Sunwoo this summer. His recital on a frightfully rainy day began with
thanks from the pianist to those who braved the weather to attend. Beethoven’s 32 Variations in C minor was a perfect opening, played
in a more lyrical manner than usual. This was followed by the lengthy four Impromptus, D 935, by Schubert. Sunwoo took a very personal,
introspective approach to these works. Rarely did he reach a full forte, especially in the first three pieces, but there was a world of
dynamics in the more limited range. His phrasing and variety of touch complemented musically alive rhythms from start to finish.
After intermission the big work was Brahms’s early Sonata No. 2, delivered with full romantic gusto. Finally, a major competition winner
could not be in the middle of his first concert season without a virtuosic closing. Ravel’s solo piano arrangement of La Valse served that
purpose with as much musicality as flying fingers.

Etudes by Chopin and Liszt are fundamental to these programs (no doubt repertoire brought to the institute by students), but the big group of Debussy’s Etudes played so marvelously by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet was one of the festival’s high points. His recital also included an astounding performance of the first and longer version of Schumann’s Sonata No. 3 (Concerto Without Orchestra). Even Horowitz could not have taken the final Prestissimo Possibile any faster. The opening, Haydn’s Sonata No. 46, was a model of tasteful ornamentation that included a brief cadenza in the second movement. Before seven of Debussy’s Etudes that ended the program came a group of the composer’s less heard works, Ballade, Nocturne, and Tarantelle. I was expecting The Isle of Joy as an encore, and Bavouzet did not disappoint me.

Of the 100+ major works programmed over the two weeks, the one I anticipated most was Liszt’s paraphrase of Les Patineurs from
Meyerbeer’s Prophet. This was likely my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear one of the most difficult of all of Liszt’s legendary operatic
transcriptions and fantasies. I bet American pianist Drew Petersen, 24, played more glissandos in this nine-minute piece than he will
play during the rest of his career. It was an exceptionally brilliant ending to a program that began with Beethoven’s Sonata No. 5,
3 waltzes by Chopin, and his grand Fantasy, Opus 49. Petersen reminded me of what I have read about the demeanor, physical appearance,
and ability of young Van Cliburn in Moscow so many years ago.

Alon Goldstein and the Fine Arts Quartet combined for the one major concert than was not solo piano. Their superb program consisted
of Mozart works with three consecutive Köchel numbers: String Quartet No. 19 and Piano Concertos Nos. 20 and 21—K 465, 466,
and 467. The concertos were Ignaz Lachner’s arrangements for string quartet, double bass, and piano (he did the same for 19 others).
This group has recorded these two for Naxos, and another pair is to be released this fall. It was a wonderful break in repertoire and instrumentation.

The Fine Arts Quartet fully lived up to its reputation with the kind of precision expected when great artists have been together for as long as 35 years (violinists Evans and Boico). Goldstein played with style and flair but never pushed beyond the basic nature of Mozart’s mature piano writing. He used Beethoven’s cadenza in the first movement of No. 20, but played his own in all other movements. The interaction between piano, the quartet, and bass was quite enjoyable to watch as well as to hear. The piano part was not changed from the original, but all of the wind parts were integrated into the string parts. I sometimes missed the full orchestra but deepened my knowledge of these works with these effective arrangements.

Each of the festival’s main recitals could justify a full review, but I’ll just list some of the works played for an idea of the depth, variety,
and quality of the piano playing at IKIF. Vladimir Feltsman played Schumann’s Arabesque and Kreisleriana plus 14 mazurkas and three ballades by Chopin. Jeffery Swan offered Beethoven’s Sonatas Nos. 2, 21, and 28 covering early, middle and late periods, Claire Huangci programmed sonatas by Scarlatti and Schubert followed by Chopin’s 24 Preludes. Massimiliano Ferrati played Mozart’s Fantasy in C minor followed by Beethoven’s Sonata No. 32 in the same key. Steven Mayer played the world premiere of his own transcription of Gottschalk’s Night in the Tropics.

Hunter College Director of Piano Studies Geoffrey Burleson, currently recording the complete piano music of Saint-Saens, treated us to several of these neglected works before a powerful Dante Sonata by Liszt. Ilya Yakushev played the final solo concert with a program built around Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata, among the most exciting performances of it I’ve ever heard. Mozart’s Adagio in B minor opened the program with intensity. Yakushev’s second half was devoted to Liszt, including an epic performance of Vallée d’Obermann and ending with a great Mephisto Waltz. And there were two Distinguished Faculty Artist Concerts where several pianists played one or two major works each. These were all Masters Series concerts—and I haven’t even touched on the same number of Prestige Series recitals played at 5 PM every day.

Even though there were good sized, appreciative audiences at all of these concerts, I found myself wondering why there wasn’t a long line of people waiting to get tickets every night. Compared with the regular concert season, there are few programs at this level in and around New York in the summer. In July, people looking for fascinating programs, expertly played by world class artists—and at a bargain price—could do no better than the IKIF. It is worth a special effort to get here as often as possible—the concerts are a summer nirvana if you love great piano music.

The pianist entered the stage to begin his recital. According to the program, he was to begin it in an arresting way—with Beethoven’s Variations in C Minor. That work has an exceptionally arresting opening. It is almost like an announcement. But the pianist faced the audience and said, “I’m sorry to speak before I play anything.”

I was sorry too! The talk immediately yanked the evening into the world of the mundane. The magic of a recital—especially the opening moments—was upset. Why do they do this? Why do musicians talk from the stage, habitually? Contagion, I think. They see
others do it and think they have to.

At any rate, our pianist was Yekwon Sunwoo, winner of the Van Cliburn Competition last year. It seems to me that the Van Cliburn
is a smaller deal than it once was in our national life, or national cultural life. Maybe that’s because culture—high culture—is a smaller
deal. Sunwoo is from South Korea and came to America as a teenager to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

In New York, he was playing at the International Keyboard Institute & Festival, now in its twentieth year. It is run by its founder, the
pianist Jerome Rose, and the festival director, Julie Kedersha. IKIF is an excellent showcase for both pianists and piano repertoire—
including unusual and neglected repertoire. Sunwoo was playing on the stage of the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College.

What is it about Beethoven and C minor? He chose that key for some of his most bracing expressions. Think of the Fifth Symphony, just
for starters. In the Variations, Sunwoo was a little stiff and ungainly. His playing would have benefited from more suspense. I thought of a line I read long ago, from the composer and pianist Ernst Bacon: “If there is one trait common to all great interpreters, it is their capacity for intensification.” Also, Sunwoo could have used more warmth in a C-major variation, chorale-like. In general, his Beethoven was respectable, but he can do better . . .

. . . as he did in the next work, by Schubert. This was that composer’s D. 935, Four Impromptus. In the first impromptu, the pianist must capture Schubert’s sweet sadness. Sunwoo largely did. He sang, too, as the music requires. (I mean, he sang on the keyboard, not with his mouth, as Glenn Gould liked to.) As I listened to the second impromptu, I thought, “Here is a young man playing old man’s music. Backhaus music.” Twilight music, transcendental. I’m glad that Sunwoo likes this music, already. He played it well, employing intelligent rubato, for example.

No. 3 is simple and profound at the same time. (Very Schubertian.) The pianist understood this. In No. 4, he was violently impish,
which was fine—it made you sit up straighter in your chair. Yet the closing measures were too blunt and ugly for Schubert.

By the way, Yekwon Sunwoo is a head-shaker. He shakes his head as he plays, especially when he is “feeling” the music. It’s like he’s saying “No, no, no.” There are head-nodders among pianists, too. Evgeny Kissin is the best of them. The headnodders usually play vertically—all too—whereas the -shakers lean toward the horizontal.

After intermission, Sunwoo sat down to something really unusual—unusual, old-fashioned, and wonderful: Percy Grainger’s Ramble on Love, which treats Der Rosenkavalier, the Strauss opera of 1911. This opera made a big impression on composers and millions of others. Grainger’s “ramble” is what Liszt might have called a “fantasy” or a “paraphrase.” But “ramble” is a wonderful old word, isn’t it? Specifically, Grainger treats the final duet of the opera, “Ist ein Traum.” He does it woozily, sensually, and Straussily. Sunwoo was pretty good in it.

He was really good in the next work, another rarity, though of a much different character: Brahms’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in F-sharp minor, Op. 2. This is a very early work. It happens to be earlier than Brahms’s Op. 1, which is his Piano Sonata No. 1 in C major. How’s that? The Sonata No. 2 was written first but published second. I consider it sort of a starter symphony. It is sprawling and ambitious. The second movement, Andante con espressione, is a weird one. Almost modernistic. It is a striking piece of music, deserving of wide notice. The Sonata No. 2 is hard to manage, technically and interpretively, and Sunwoo was assured and manful in it.

Good for him for championing this under-programmed work. It occurs to me that two staples of my youth are no longer on pianists’ menus, much: the Handel Variations and the Paganini Variations. Repertoire fashion is an interesting topic.

Sunwoo closed with La valse, the Ravel hit. He was very bold in it—fine—but short on panache. In any event, he had played an appealingly varied program, and it will be enjoyable to follow his career, as he goes from the Cliburn gold medal to who knows what heights?

Incidentally, I have long complained of performers’ bios: they contain precious little biographical information. They are usually long and boring lists of cities, orchestras, and conductors. But how about the way Yekwon Sunwoo’s bio ends? I have no complaint about it: “A self-proclaimed foodie, Mr. Sunwoo enjoys finding pho in each city he visits and takes pride in his own homemade Korean soups.”

Reed Tetzloff - IKIF

20th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 27th, 2018

Debussy: La Cathédral Engloutie from Preludes, Book I
Franck: Prélude, Choral, et Fugue, FWV 21
Ives: Piano Sonata No. 2, "Concord, Mass., 1840-1860"
1) "Emerson" (after Ralph Waldo Emerson)
2) "Hawthorne" (after Nathaniel Hawthorne)
3) "The Alcotts" (after Bronson Alcott and Louisa May Alcott)
4) "Thoreau" (after Henry David Thoreau)

Reed Tetzloff is a 26 year old pianist from Minnesota who has already played all over this country, plus in numerous European countries, and in China. He has also won quite a few prizes in competitions. From the way he played this challenging recital one could tell why. He is not only an excellent pianist, but also a wonderful musician. Everything he does comes across as natural, organic to the music, and unforced, especially his sense of pacing, and his tone, which is always round and beautiful.

He began with the Sunken Cathedral Prelude of Debussy, played at a slow, but effective speed. After the glorious moment in C Major, when the cathedral has fully emerged from the deep, there was a finely measured diminuendo before the (quasi) C-Sharp Minor section, and a beautifully pedaled murmuring of the main theme near the end. One also noticed here how well Tetzloff controls the instrument when playing softly.

The Franck Prelude, Chorale and Fugue is one of the composer's major piano works. The Prelude seems to be based on at least three motives: the opening theme, one that seems like an outburst of emotion, and a pleading theme. Here, and in the very chromatic Chorale, Tetzloff was always expressively going somewhere, and doing something. He never rushed his way through this dense material, and some of it sounded very deeply felt by the pianist. The poco allegro introduction to the fugue was played with great care, after which he solemnly intoned the first statement of the fugue. There was a wide dynamic range in the fugue, and all buildups of sound followed a fine musical logic. Later, he floated the first theme from the Prelude against the theme of the Fugue, and this led into the frenzied conclusion of the work.

Before performing Ives' "Concord" Sonata, Tetzloff gave a short lecture about the composer and the music. Ives, whom he called "the father of modernism in American culture," was not in sync with the artistic ways of his contemporaries. He was not a "bohemian" nor was he interested in what the Wagnerites in Europe were doing. Also, quite atypical of most composers, he was a very good baseball player (while at Yale), and he ultimately became very successful in the insurance business.

Yet, perhaps like other "thinkers," his music was influenced by a concern for the eternal questions of existence. That is symbolized in this work, above all, by numerous repetitions of the first theme of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (G-G-G-E Flat). Another point of interest in the Sonata is that it has few barlines. Apparently the composer considered the score just a "jumping off point." He felt that every performance of it should be radically different. Tetzloff compared that to sounds one hears in the morning which may seem quite different if heard again in the evening.

The Sonata is based on Ives' reflections on five famous authors, all of whom lived in Concord, Massachusetts.

The first movement, Tetzloff told us, is about asking these important questions. One hears the Beethoven motive repeatedly, and there are spontaneous sounding meanderings which are interrupted by loud explosions. The movement ends very softly with the Beethoven theme in the left hand.

The second movement is based on the idea that “life is a dream and a joke," according to the pianist. The music is alternately wild and fantastic, then quiet. A wooden block was used to play tone clusters with the right hand. Later there is a hymn fragment, which alternates with a whirlwind, and still later comes a march.

The third movement is the slow movement. Here, again, are reiterations of the Beethoven theme, this time all over the place, even hanging down from one tonality into another, plus patriotic hymns, Scottish songs, etc.

The last movement is a meditation on Thoreau, who said that he didn't have to go to Boston to hear concerts; he could simply walk in the woods and enjoy the sounds of nature instead. Much of this movement is quiet, subdued, and spiritual, with beautiful shadings. At one point it seemed to be softly marching away into the distance. At the end, one hears the Beethoven theme again in the right hand, but with the same note repeated four times, instead of dropping a minor third for the last note, a soft left hand accompaniment underneath. Did Ives finally find the answer(s) to his question(s)?!

I don't know. But in answer to the question "What kind of pianist is Reed Tetzloff?" the answer would certainly be "One whom I'd like to hear again!"

Geoffrey Burleson - IKIF

20th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 25th, 2018

Schubert: Sonata in A Minor, D. 845
Saint-Saens: Mazurka No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 66
Saint-Saens: Valse nonchalante, Op. 110
Saint-Saens: Etude en Forme de Valse, Op. 52, No. 6
Tania Léon: Ritual (1987)
Liszt: Dante Sonata

Geoffrey Burleson is known for his creative and stimulating programs. One of his current projects is recording all of the piano works of Saint-Saens. I remember a very fine program he played last year. But during the first half of his recital last night I had the feeling that I was not hearing him at his best. Some of it seemed a bit unsettled, as if his focus wasn't optimal.

The Schubert sonata, one of at least three the composer wrote in A Minor, is a wonderful work, and I was happy to hear it. In the first movement Burleson brought out the folksy feeling in the quasi-Ländler parts, as well as the more dramatic moments. The second movement had some charm, and the F Major trio of the third movement was sensitively played. The last movement, though, seemed very rushed. When one has the ability to play as fast as Mr. Burleson the music can sometimes come across as a big blur. Thus, musical pointing and punctuation are very important. I had somewhat the same feeling hearing him play Saint-Saens' Etude in the Form of a Waltz. I've played that piece, and yet I could not follow what was going on some of the time, so fast did it fly by.

I did enjoy the two other Saint-Saens works, which were new to me. The Mazurka had charm, elegance, and was quite lovely, though I could not discern in it a mazurka rhythm. (Is a French mazurka based on a different rhythm?) The Valse nonchalante had lovely washes of sound, and a Faure-ish ending.

The second half of the program was much more impressively played.

The Ritual of Tania Léon was new to me, so presumably one would get more out of repeated hearings. It started slowly, then became faster and more complicated as more and more material was added, and played off against what was already there.

Burleson's performance of Liszt's Dante Sonata was very fine, right from those alarming tritones at the beginning. There was power, sensitivity, nobility, and lovely shadings here.

Burleson played one encore, his own jazz arrangement, though I couldn't hear on what it was based. Terrifically complicated, it had all sorts of rhythms, snazzy charm, and great energy.

Massimiliano Ferrati - IKIF

20th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 24th, 2018

By now I know that when I hear a recital by Massimiliano Ferrati (whom I interviewed the other day) it will be a happy experience, and that even when his ideas about the music differ from mine there will be much to respect, and at least a few things to learn.

He began with a wonderful reading of the C Minor Fantasy of Mozart, K. 475. Though I think Ferrati's greatest strength is as a Romantic pianist he reminded me what a Romantic composer Mozart was! Everything was played in perfect taste, yet with great warmth. Both his slow tempi as well as the fast, brilliant sections sounded natural, and there were many fine details to be enjoyed, such as an exquisite diminuendo just before the return of the original C Minor theme.

When it comes to performances of Beethoven's Op. 111 some people (ie. me) are very hard to satisfy. Perhaps that makes us come across like religious zealots, and perhaps I am then expressing my own limitations, not those of the pianist I'm hearing. But, in fact, this may be the great musical masterpiece of which I've heard the fewest performances I've really liked. I will readily admit that the ones that come closest to my ideal are the Schnabel and Hungerford interpretations. These versions feature spell-binding concentration, an unearthly profundity, and an unbelievable intensity that makes one feel that LIVES HANG IN THE BALANCE!

While Ferrati's performance was not on this level it was much more than just pianistically well-played. There was, indeed, much to admire, and a lot of beautiful, thoughtful playing.
The allegro of the first movement was fleet, indeed, virtuosic. And the coda was appropriately threatening in nature. The long second movement was not as slow as one sometimes hears it, but very expressive and well-thought out. The beautifully played theme was followed by two sensitively played variations, and then the "jazz" variation, which was certainly fast and lively. The variation after that was effectively played with some meaningful "stresses" in the left hand. The rest of the movement was quite gorgeous. There were the celestial scales up to C Major, the worrisomely pulsing E's in the A Minor section, the brilliant triple trills, and the gritty leadup toward the end. And then came the final statement of the theme with trills accompanying it (this was particularly well done) and the subdued conclusion.

Both the beginning and the end of the second half of Mr. Ferrati's program brought to mind great Chopin pianists of the past.

The performance of the two mazurkas reminded me of Moritz Rosenthal because, like Rosenthal, Ferrati never just "plays the notes" but has everything thought out, and planned. Thus, these relatively small pieces have more substance than they might otherwise, and come across as legends. The G-Sharp Minor Mazurka was particularly expressive, and the B Minor Mazurka included a very effective modulation back to B Minor after the B Major section, and a beautiful diminuendo at the end.

In the often played B-Flat Minor Scherzo Ferrati's innovative ideas included playing the A Major section very softly the second time, and becoming very quiet, indeed, before the first theme returned.

The A-Flat Major Waltz was played with charm, elegance and sweep. One of Ferrati's novel ideas here was to play one of the middle sections first with lots of pedal, and the second time with much less. I had never heard this effect before.

And then, without pause, he launched into the Prokofiev pieces, I suppose because the first one is in the same key as the Waltz. One began to feel he was a bit tired by now. And yet, there was much to enjoy here, including the vigorous Mercutio, the dreamy and flirtatious Young Juliet, and Montagues and Capulets, with a theme that seems almost violent, yet also includes a laid-back trio section built on the same motive.

If any people left after the Prokofiev, I'm sorry for them. Because the encore was the most perfectly played moment of the program.

Those with an interest in historical piano recordings will know the 1936 recording of Ignaz Friedman playing the big Chopin E-Flat Nocturne, Op. 55, No. 2. Some consider it the greatest ever recording of a nocturne, and some even think of it as the greatest Chopin recording, PERIOD. Every time I return to it I'm overwhelmed.

The C-Sharp Minor, Op. Posthumous Nocturne which Ferrati played is on a smaller scale than the big E-Flat Nocturne. But Ferrati did with it what Friedman did with the other. I cannot imagine it better played! It would have been a perfect take, had this been a recording session. After the foreboding chords at the beginning, he spun out the long-lined, gorgeously ornamented melody, and later played it in a hushed manner when it returned after the middle section. A wonderful end to the evening!

Last week, in advance of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s recital at the Kaye Playhouse, I wrote that this acclaimed French pianist’s playing is “so musical and elegant you sometimes don’t notice its brilliance.” Well, after his performance on Wednesday, part of the International Keyboard Festival and Institute, I may have to rethink my earlier assessment. His playing was almost defiantly brilliant, more exciting than elegant, especially in Schumann’s gnarly Sonata No. 3 in F minor, subtitled “Concerto Without Orchestra.” In this four-movement, 30-minute score, Schumann tries to channel his fantastical imagination into complex, contrapuntally intricate forms. Mr. Bavouzet tore through the piece with abandon, dispatching tangles of lines and chords with flinty power. In the second half he played three early Debussy works and seven of that composer’s late, enormously difficult Études. He has recorded Debussy’s complete piano works on a five-disc set released in 2012.

Alon Goldstein and the Fine Arts Quartet (Ralph Evans and Efim Boico, Violins, Gil Sharon, Viola, Niklas Schmidt, Cello) with Andrew Sommer, Bass

20th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 19th, 2018

Mozart: String Quartet in C Major, K 465 - "Dissonant"
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466 - arr. I. Lachner
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K, 467 - arr. I. Lachner

My first (facetious) thought about this concert was: Who let a string quartet onto the stage at IKIF unescorted by a pianist? (!)

My second was: How great it is to hear what Mozart produced in just these three consecutive Köchel numbers?!

And the third was: I wish that people who don't appreciate the greatness of Mozart had heard this program. It might have changed their minds!

The Fine Arts Quartet is a very good group, and it was, indeed, a pleasure to hear a string quartet amidst all the piano repertoire we've been hearing at Hunter College lately. Their ensemble is excellent, and while they take vigorous tempi when appropriate, they don't play excessively fast just to show off. The first movement started with the pulsating, and, indeed, dissonant adagio, followed by the allegro in which the various voices played beautifully off each other. The lovely andante movement was followed by the vigorous C Major minuet movement, which almost seemed to be in the spirit of a Beethoven scherzo movement. The C Minor trio section of that movement was appropriately brusquely played, and one noted the effect of the sforzando markings. The sunny fourth movement, which, like the first movement, is in sonata-allegro form, showed both the charm and sophistication of Mozart's writing. Particularly effective was the way they glided into the second theme both times, first into E-Flat Major, and later, in the recap, into A-Flat Major, and how they played the delightful coda.

Before performing the two concerti Alon Goldstein spoke briefly about arrangements, and how they won't work with the music of some composers (like Chopin on other than the piano). He mentioned that in these transcriptions Lachner left the piano parts exactly as Mozart wrote them, and incorporated the wind parts into the strings. He added that in the first movement of the D Minor Concerto he would play Beethoven's cadenza but in the last movement, and in the first and last movements of the other concerto he would play his own.

So, what does one make of these arrangements? Clearly they are a "different sort of animal" from the original, though the piano parts are unaltered. In one sense, the effect was more like hearing chamber music than a concerto, where one sometimes hears soloist VERSUS orchestra (though that can occasionally get out of hand!) The piano was situated behind the ensemble (the Quartet plus Mr. Sommer) instead of in front of it, as with an orchestra. And the dynamic of having one person playing each part also was a change. Occasionally one did miss the unique sound of the wind instruments, but not too often. So, altogether, though quite different from the original works with orchestra, the transcriptions were effective and enjoyable. And the balance between the strings and Mr. Goldstein was well handled.

In the first movement of the D Minor Concerto one heard interesting and expressive, though never eccentric ideas in the piano part, such as when it went into a G Minor section. There was a "threatening" leadup to the cadenza, which had imaginative pauses and tempo shifts. In the second movement Mr. Goldstein beautifully spun the melodies against the accompaniment of the others. Also noteworthy was the turbulent G Minor section, and the way they melted back into the B-Flat Major theme. The last movement was lively and dramatic. In addition to the ingenious cadenza at the end of the movement, Mr. Goldstein added one earlier on.

In the first movement of the C Major Concerto there was a wonderful transition into the G Major second theme. The E Minor theme was sorrowfully beautiful. Mr. Goldstein’s cadenza at the end of the movement was witty, briefly leading into what sounded like the beginning of a nocturne in A-Flat Major, and then, momentarily, suggesting the theme of the first movement of Beethoven's C Minor Concerto. The slow movement had a lovely, natural flow and the melodies were eloquently played. Mr. Goldstein added yet another cadenza at the beginning of the finale, which got that delightful movement off to a fine start.

The audience reaction at the end was understandably enthusiastic.

Tomoki Sakata - IKIF
20th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 18th, 2018

Beethoven: Sonata No. 16 in G Major, Op. 31, No. 1
Liszt: Spanish Rhapsody, S. 254/ R. 90
Takemitsu: Les yeux clos - in memory of Shuzo Takiguchi (1979)
Takemitsu: Rain Tree Sketch II - In Memoriam Olivier Messiaen (1992)
Scriabin: Feuillet d'album, Op. 45, No. 1
Scriabin: Fragilité, Op. 51, No. 1
Scriabin: Poéme, Op. 59, No. 1
Scriabin: Sonata No. 5, Op. 53

Tomoki Sakata won First Prize, as well as six special prizes, at the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Budapest, and was one of the top six finalists at the 2013 Van Cliburn Competition. He has already played in many concert halls in Europe and Asia, and currently studies with Arie Vardi in Hannover.

At the end of this challenging program, which had no intermission, and during which he never left the stage, Mr. Sakata thanked Jerome Rose, the founder of the Festival, for the honor of inviting him to perform there, and thanked the audience for staying to the end, ie for the Takemitsu and Scriabin works. The latter amused me, as that's when he did his best playing.

It was commendable that Mr. Sakata programmed the very odd, and rarely heard Beethoven Sonata, Op. 31, No. 1, though the outer movements sounded a bit overly serious and severe. The comments of a friend about Beethoven's talent for turning truly strange themes, such as those of these movements, into masterpieces helped me find the clue to what seemed missing here, despite the excellent pianism. In addition to brilliant fingerwork there should also be some lightness, gentleness and humor in these movements.

Mr. Sakata displayed a fine understanding of the idiom of Liszt's Spanish Rhapsody, and displayed terrific trills, scales and control of the dramatic narrative. Near the end I briefly thought he might go into "full 'Barere" mode. He didn't end up playing quite that fast, but it was certainly impressive.

Then things started to get even better.

The first Takemitsu work seemed full of yearning, and had improvisatory sounding sections and clashing moods. It was very expressive, sounding rather like extremely late Impressionism. Mr. Sakata showed off his excellent control of very soft playing as this piece trailed off at the end. The second piece was more gentle, with charm and subtlety, and beautiful melodic fragments that had a loving, though dissonant accompaniment.

The first Scriabin piece was beautiful and nostalgic. Fragilité and the Poéme were gorgeous, full of Scriabin's typical sensuousness, tumult and outward reaching towards the ecstatic. The Fifth Sonata was also wonderfully played. It begins with a shocking "attack" which is followed by an extremely contrasting gentle theme, and later by a frenetic section. All of these, plus the explosive buildup leading to the conclusion were impressively played.

Mr. Sakata played one encore, a lovely reading of the Schumann/Liszt "Widmung." .

Two years ago, when I attended my first performance at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, I spoke with a fellow attendee. The recital we were about to see was one of the last in the series, and she had made a point to attend every one. Looking back, which performer was her favorite? Her answer was Claire Huangci. On the second day of this year’s festival, Claire Huangci showed an abundance of the skill, style and emotion that made her an audience favorite in 2016. These also helped her win the Jury Discretionary Award at the 2013 Cliburn, first prize at last month’s Concours Géza Anda competition in Zurich, and all our hearts in her recordings and in the professionally produced videos featuring her, which can be found online.

Wearing on her right wrist her signature style of sparkling bangly bracelets, she proceeded headlong through the Scarlatti sonatas, even outpacing some of the precision that can be found on her recordings of these sonatas, but conveying all of the effervescence. (Her jeweler must also be a musician, because her bracelets, though eye-catching, kinetic and seemingly rigid, were silent.)

Program

Domenico Scarlatti
Sonata in D Major, K. 443
Sonata in A Major, K. 209
Sonata in D Major, K. 29
Sonata in D Major, K. 435

Franz Schubert Sonata in A Major, D.959
Allegro
Andantino
Scherzo: Allegro vivace
Rondo: Allegretto – Presto

—Intermission—

Frédéric Chopin 24 Preludes, Op. 28
Claude Debussy L’isle joyeuse, L. 106 (encore)

Though she is young, Ms. Huangci’s performance of the Shubert sonata was very mature. But what does that mean? Schubert’s final works are often described as mature, but Schubert died a young man. He wrote this sonata after attending the funeral of Beethoven, whom he revered, and likely with knowledge of his own impending death by disease at age thirty one. In Swann’s Way, the title character attends the performance of a work by his favorite composer and feels pangs of sympathy—how this master must have suffered to have been able to compose a work such as this! When I write that her performance was mature, I mean that in my maturing mind, like Swann I could sense the creator’s anguish. And how can a scherzo written by a composer in such an emotional state be played with lightheartedness? It may require a young person to come up with the answer, and Ms. Huangci revealed it. If in the Scarlatti Ms. Huangci’s tempi seemed hurried and did not elevate my grasp of the music, a brisk tempo in the Rondo movement of the Schubert was thoroughly enlightening and brought the work to a very satisfying and hopeful culmination.

During intermission, wanting to place myself under the full force of the Yamaha grand, I moved from the left side and found a seat in the center. This proved beneficial, because in addition to an even better sound spectrum, there was no distraction from bracelets, and a better vista of Ms. Huangci’s facial expression during the Chopin. Her Chopin preludes were breathtaking. What a study in contrasts these twenty-four pieces are! Some are so short and simple—the A major and E minor come to mind—that their notes can be learned by a student just past beginner level; but when played by a talented performer in a concert hall, they bring with them the full force of complex emotion. In reality, the emotion of the few simpler preludes is amplified by being sandwiched between the majority, which are longer and pose technical and emotional challenges that only the most advanced player is capable of surmounting. As I listened and began to scribble notes, I jotted remarks such as “Gmaj incredibly well articulated in the left hand,” but soon I was noting “lovely,” “LOVELY,” and by the C-sharp minor began to panic that by paying too much attention to my notes I was letting the performance slip by without my full emotional presence. So I set down my notepad and gave myself over to the experience. If I had written notes, many would have said, “I finally understand it!” because, intoxicated with the playing, I became like the high person who believes he gets the meaning of life.

For an encore, she played Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse and gave a glimpse into a profoundly unexpected dimension of her talent. I must hear her play more Debussy.

Claire Huangci has set a high bar for the host of luminary and rising pianists who are scheduled to follow her in the upcoming fortnight of piano recitals at Hunter College. Indeed, she had set a high bar for herself. Of the four Scarlatti works in her program, you can find at least two of them in online videos, and all can be heard on her masterfully played and recorded 2-CD set from 2015. And you can view her performance of the Schubert sonata at the Concours Géza Anda. To see video of her performance of the Preludes and of L’isle joyeuse, we will have to wait until the IKIF posts the video of this recital, and it will be an impatient wait for me.

Jerome Rose opened the International Keyboard Institute and Festival Sunday night at Hunter College.

It was time to put away the plaster busts of Beethoven, Schumann and Liszt Sunday night at Hunter College’s Kaye Playhouse, as pianist Jerome Rose demonstrated what loose cannons those canonical composers really were.

How better to kick off the 20th annual International Keyboard Institute and Festival—two intense weeks of recitals, master classes and lectures about the piano—than with a program of piano pieces that dared all in their day, and still challenge the understanding of performer and listener alike?

Rose, the festival’s founder and director, sailed with abandon into the opening Vivace, ma non troppo of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109. The forward momentum was indeed almost troppo, but in spite of that the pianist showed a keen sense of every flit and twist in this volatile music.

In contrast, the ensuing Prestissimo, a biting parody of the sonata’s tender opening theme, seems to call for a mercilessly strict tempo. On Sunday, the spurts and fluctuations of the Vivace seemed to bleed over into it, causing a somewhat blurry performance.

There were no such issues, however, with the great closing movement, which packs a world of expression into its noble theme and just six variations. In this performance, one wished the theme would sing out a bit more, but the variations were finely characterized, from the ornate soprano aria of No. 1 to the blossoming of ecstatic trills in No. 6.

Rose’s broad tonal palette in the variations, from brilliant to mellow to sturdy, served to remind listeners, as this piano festival got under way, how essential touch and tone are to playing the instrument at the highest level.

For volatility, even Beethoven’s Op. 109 takes a back seat to Schumann’s Humoreske in B-flat major, Op. 20. The composer, whose beloved piano cycles such as Papillions and Carnaval can seem like the purest expression of ADHD in music, outdid himself in this piece, seemingly flinging heterogeneous bits of music together in no discernable order. If Schumann hadn’t already used the title “Traumes Wirren” (Dream Confusions) for an earlier piece, it would have suited this one perfectly.

Rose’s response to Schumann’s interpretive challenge was similar to what he did in the Beethoven: press ahead. At the outset, the tempo really was troppo, and Schumann’s brief, bright ideas sped by as if seen from a bullet train. As the piece unfolded, however, the pianist found the right combination of momentum and characterization, and the mood swings—the mingled “humors”—of the Humoreske could be better appreciated.

From the muffled drums of its opening to the exhaustion of passion at its close, Liszt’s “Funérailles” is such a compelling drama that one forgets that it, too, is composed of extremely heterogeneous materials: a wailing dirge, a sensuous love theme, a thrilling battle scene, all tumbling after each other in a tragic procession.

On Sunday, Rose needed no sped-up tempos to engage the listener, relying instead on sonorous crescendo in the funeral march, glowing tone in the erotic interludes, and an edge-of-the-seat rush of octaves as his hero galloped into the fray.

Such a masterpiece, so stirringly delivered, was bound to cast a shadow on its two more lyrical mates from the collection Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. At least “Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude,” which preceded “Funérailles” on this program, was made of first-rate materials, attractively set. Rose laid it out beautifully, his rubato growing out of the theme’s long expressive arc, the chords big and round, the filigree liquid.

“Cantique d’amour” (Hymn of Love), the closing piece in both Liszt’s collection and Sunday’s program, was yet another Lisztian effort to bridge the sacred and the profane, in the prolix, frothy style to which this composer sometimes resorted when inspiration flagged. It at least brought Sunday’s recital in for a safe, soft landing.

Not content to leave it there, Rose returned with a brilliant encore, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 1 in C-sharp minor, delivered with plenty of soul in the mournful recitative and fire in the frenzied conclusion.

Jerome Rose - IKIF
20th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 15th, 2018

Beethoven: Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109
Schumann: Humoreske in B-Flat Major, Op. 20
Harmonies poétiques et religieuses
Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude
Funérailles
Cantique d'amour

Yes, it's that time of summer, meaning the beginning of the latter half of July, when lovers of the piano and its repertoire flock to Hunter College for the International Keyboard Institute and Festival. It offers two weeks of recitals (often two a day) presented by exceptional pianists of all ages, plus classes, master classes, lectures, and a competition.

The founder of the Festival, now beginning its 20th season, is the pianist Jerome Rose, who, traditionally, gives the opening night recital. The winner of the 1961 Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition, and a student of Rudolf Serkin and Leonard Shure, Mr. Rose has had a long and impressive career as an artist and teacher, and is as busy as ever. Next month he will celebrate his 80th birthday. He is a very serious musician (which also came across in what he told me during an interview last year) and he always plays big, demanding programs.

The first movement of Beethoven's Op. 109 was beautifully played, alternately thoughtful and turbulent. The second movement was appropriately wild. In the third movement there was a good intensity in the first variation, a nice interplay of the hands in the second, a lovely rolling-along sensation in the fourth variation, and excellent voicing of the melody against the trills in the sixth.

The Humoreske of Schumann is quite an odd, though fascinating major work. Its many peculiarities include at least one brilliant "false ending" which produced applause from the audience at the wrong time! The first allegro section in B-Flat Major was performed in a lively manner, with beautiful phrasing. The D Minor section was dramatic, the quasi-fugato Intermezzo section was brilliant, and a later section, where the melody is played in octaves, was deeply felt.

Amidst a lot of very fine playing in the Beethoven and Schumann there was some rushing and a few memory lapses. But by the second half of the program Mr. Rose was at the top of his game. Indeed, though this should not be a surprise, considering his reputation as a Liszt player, the all-Liszt second half of the program was marvelous!

The Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude was lush and lovely, though powerful. Mr. Rose handled the complicated arpeggiation and ornamentation with ease. In the Funérailles he produced a huge sound, and his octaves were those of a young virtuoso! In Cantique d'amour there is a melody with an accompaniment "floating" around it, and later an ardent melody punctuated by brilliant octaves. I couldn't imagine this played any better!

Mr. Rose played one encore, the Thirteenth Hungarian Rhapsody of Liszt. The "quasi-gypsy mode" was exactly right, and in the end he pulled out all the stops. Very exciting, indeed!

The Festival is off to a good start!

Where, in the heat of July in New York, could you hear Vladimir Feltsman take you on a ride with Baba-Yaga to the Great Gate of Kiev for only $20? Now in its 19th year, the International Keyboard Institute and Festival (IKIF) presented two weeks of masterclasses, lectures, and concerts by renowned pianists and students at Hunter College. Founded and directed by pianist Jerome Rose and Festival Director Julie Kedersha (Rose’s wife), the institute draws students from all over the world to study and compete. New York area audiences who appreciate world class pianists in recital come every night for the bargain price of $20 to the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse. During the day these same pianists give masterclasses that are open to the public and all the students, usually in Hunter’s Lang Concert Hall. A two-week pass that covers every event is only $200.

It is the dual nature of this event that sets it apart from other festivals or summer educational programs. The recitals are performed with all the skill expected across town at Carnegie, Alice Tully, Avery Fisher, and Merkin Halls. I have reviewed CDs in ARG by at least eight of this year’s pianists, and all concert performances were at an exceptionally high level. Nearly 100 students from all over the world came for the two weeks; each had several piano lessons a week with the distinguished faculty, and they got to attend all of the evening concerts. They have the option to compete for scholarships, with the winner invited back for a main stage recital next year.

The list of pianists who have performed and taught at IKIF over the past 19 years reads like a who’s who in the piano world: Wild, Entremont, Sandor, Janis, De Larrocha, Ts’ong, Hamelin, Goode, Pressler, Keene, Laredo, Oppens, Frank, Katsaris, Bavouzet, Howard, and of course, Rose himself. Other pianists who have records regularly reviewed in ARG are also IKIF performers: Kobrin, Kern, Swann, Suk, Wang, Li, Bax, Burleson, Demidenko, Kristenko, Gavryluk, Yakushev, and Baczewska. Some have been performing at the festival for 15 or more years, and there is a growing number of home-grown artists and teachers. In the case of Baczewska, now one of the brightest and best of IKIF’s performer-teachers, she began as a student 19 years ago and was a competition winner.

At pre-concert talks, program notes are discussed and performers are interviewed. Two or three of the performers gather at a small table stage right between 7 and 7:15 each evening for at least half an hour. One of the participants is the scheduled pianist for the following evening’s recital, which works as wonderful advertisement for both the artist and the program. There is a discussion of both the current and next evening’s programs, often with examples on the piano and the opportunity to ask questions.

Rose gave the opening concert on a Sunday evening, as he has done each of the past seasons. He is present for every event over the next two weeks. Indefatigable even at 79, his gregarious personality coupled with a still impressive big romantic piano style and over 50 years as a teacher make it easy to understand his success with IKIF. I was reminded of learning a lot of Liszt repertoire back in the 1970s from his Vox Box recordings, and then attending his all-Liszt recital back in 1986 on Liszt’s 175th birthday at Alice Tully Hall. This year he played Beethoven’s Sonata No. 18, Schumann’s Fantasy Pieces Op. 12, and Liszt’s Sonata—a demanding program for someone half his age. I remember Liszt’s Sonata as the high point of his recital 31 years ago, as it was again in July. There is so much in this piece that can distract the pianist’s overall conception, but Rose is a master with Liszt’s music, and I heard all the motivic transformations clearly. Yet the work moved right along, keeping my attention so well that all of a sudden we were at the fugue, then the presto octaves, and then the final heavenly pages. He offered no encore; only his heartfelt thanks to the audience for their attendance and his hope that they would return all through the festival.

For the next 13 days, the place to be in New York for all things piano was IKIF at Hunter College. The repertoire was quite varied but centered on Beethoven (eight sonatas, Diabelli Variations, and Bagatelles), Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann. I also heard earlier music (Bach, Scarlatti, Rameau, Mozart, and Haydn), plenty of Russian (Moussorgsky, Balakirev, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Prokofieff), French (Debussy, Ravel, SaintSaens), and even a group of Chinese pieces. Of the nearly 200 works programmed in the main evening recitals, there were only five duplicates: Tchaikovsky’s ‘Dumka’, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (with different cadenzas), a couple of Rachmaninoff preludes, and Scriabin’s left-hand Nocturne.

Each of the main recitals could justify a full review. That said, here are some of my most memorable moments looking back over the two weeks. Ilya Yakushev substituted Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata for the originally programmed Appassionata. Sonata No. 17 is not heard anywhere near as often as it should be, and the performance was clearly in the mold of the later work, full of great contrasts and unusual power and excitement. Nikita Mndoyants played Beethoven’s second set of Bagatelles and Schubert’s great Sonata, D. 958, on the first half of his recital. The second half was Prokofieff’s Sonata No. 8 in perhaps the most riveting performance of the entire festival. Though I was very sorry to have missed Magdalena Baczewska’s recital, I did get to hear her play gorgeous excerpts the night before (Debussy’s Images plus Chopin’s Scherzo 2 and some nocturnes).

Young Vladimir Rumyantsev gave the most technically demanding recital, which included both Balakirev’s Islamey and Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit—on the first half! At his Saturday afternoon recital the overflowing audience was seated in the aisles and standing along the back. The second half was a big group of great Rachmaninoff preludes followed by Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 with Rachmaninoff’s huge cadenza. The following evening, Feltsman’s masterly Pictures at an Exhibition was preceded by some of Brahms’s ballades and rhapsodies.

Later in the second week, Jie Chen opened with a gorgeously played D 894 Sonata by Schubert and then dazzled the audience with Four Seasons of China and Schulz-Evler’s Beautiful Blue Danube. Dmitri Rachmanov performed Schubert and Schumann (Vienna Carnival), followed by a Russian second half: Blumenfeld, Liadov, Scriabin (including a great Sonata No. 6), and another big group of Rachmaninoff preludes.

Alexander Kobrin closed the festival for the second year in a row. His recital (Beethoven’s Sonatas Nos. 27 and 28, Schumann Symphonic Etudes) brought us full circle from Rose’s opening program, which began with Beethoven and Schumann. Of all the pianists I heard, Kobrin was the most understated, but very much in control; and his soft playing, even in very fast, complex passages, was quite amazing. He included four of Schumann’s five posthumous etudes and brought the recital series to a rousing conclusion.

IKIF’s website (www.ikif.org) is worth investigating. Based on prior years, I expect many of the performances from this year to be available online in the near future. From 2016 backwards, there are over 200 five- to ten minute performance excerpts from past festivals, with Earl Wild, Philippe Entremont, Gyorgy Sandor, Marc-André Hamelin, Leslie Howard, Jerome Rose, and Ursula Oppens.

IKIF’s 20th anniversary is scheduled from July 15 to 29, 2018. It will be a time to celebrate how the event has grown from its first 16 years at Mannes School of Music to its recent years at Hunter. Pianists already scheduled include Vladimir Feltsman, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, George Li, and Jerome Rose. There will be some recognition of the 100th anniversary of Debussy’s death and the 75th anniversary of Rachmaninoff’s. If you love great piano music and live in or near New York, or are looking for excuse to visit, put those dates on your calendar now. You won’t spend a lot of money, but you’ll be richly rewarded for as many evenings as you can attend. After this past summer, you will find me at these events for many, many years to come.

19th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 28th, 2017

Schubert: Impromptus, D. 935, No. 1 and 3
Schumann: Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26
Blumenfeld: Moment Lyrique in E-Flat Minor, Op. 27, No. 1
Lyadov: Barcarolle, Op. 44

Scriabin:
Prelude in G Major, Op. 11, No. 3
Prelude in G Minor, Op. 27, No. 1
Prelude in B Major, Op. 27, No. 2
Poème languide, Op. 52, No. 3
Prelude, Op. 49, No. 2
Sonata No. 6, Op. 62

Rachmaninoff:
Prelude in E-Flat Major, Op. 23, No. 6
Prelude in C Minor, Op. 23, No. 7
Prelude in G Major, Op. 32, No. 5
Prelude in G-Sharp Minor, Op. 32, No. 12
Prelude in B-Flat Major, Op. 23, No. 2

Dmitry Rachmanov is a busy man, constantly travelling around the world to perform and teach master classes. Those who are fortunate to be acquainted with him know him as a gracious and modest friend. He is also a very admirable pianist, who plays big programs of music he cares deeply about, and presents with impressive technique. And it is clear from their reaction how much his audience appreciates him.

Mr. Rachmanov began with two Impromptus of Schubert, which are impressive in their size and scope, especially if one has not heard them in awhile. The F Minor Impromptu was strong and sensitive, with an impassioned middle section. His playing of the B-Flat Major Impromptu, which is a theme with variations, had many fine features, such as playfulness in the variation with triplets, and the melodrama of the B-Flat Minor variation. Where tastes vary is deciding how “romantic” a composer Schubert was, especially regarding tempo fluctuation. Mr. Rachmanov seems to favor using significantly more rubato than do many other pianists. In the B-Flat Major Impromptu there were even places where the hands were not played together, an expressive device this listener would associate more with Chopin than with Schubert.

The first movement of the Faschingsschwank aus Wien was played vigorously, and he brought out the quirks of the first interlude, and the nuances of the G Minor section. The slow second movement was painfully beautiful, with a very effective conclusion. The third movement was played a bit slower than it is sometimes heard, and was followed, in turn, by the passionate fourth movement, and the finale, which had an exciting “race to the finish!”

Mr. Rachmanov’s performance of the Blumenfeld Moment Lyrique, at the beginning of the second half, was absolutely wonderful, warm, lush and exotic. If I never hear it played better I won’t complain!

He then played the Lyadov Barcarolle after which he immediately went into his Scriabin group, which he played through, without pause, to the end. He is a founding member of the Scriabin Society of America, and is justly noted for his performances of the music of this composer. He offered a generous portion of Scriabin’s unique idiom, full of hypnotic and supernatural effects, brilliant trills, disjointed-sounding sections, and other sometimes bizarre and/or eerie features.

Very fine, too, were his performances of the Rachmaninoff Preludes. The first Prelude was languid, and the second was powerful, with turbulent torrents of notes. In the third, he returned, in a moving way, from the intense G Minor middle section to the first, gentle theme in G Major. His playing with degrees of intensity in the fourth Prelude worked very well, and the concluding B-Flat Prelude was appropriately strong, and grand.

Mr. Rachmanov played one encore, the Scriabin Poème, Op. 32, No. 1, which was playful and surreal, with lovely shadings.

19th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 27th, 2017

Mozart: Sonata in C Major, K. 330
Beethoven: Sonata in E-Flat Major, Op. 81a “Les Adieux”
Scriabin: Nocturne in D-Flat Major, Op. 9, No. 2 for the Left Hand
Chopin: Berceuse in D-Flat Major, Op. 57
Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35

I always enjoy Massimiliano Ferrati’s recitals. Towards the end of this program I remembered why: He never “just” plays the piano; he is always making music! His playing has warmth, sensitivity and depth. These qualities alone will take one far!

The first movement of the Mozart sonata was cheerful, elegant and delightful. The second movement was lyrical, and he brought out the quiet drama in the middle section. The last movement was invigorating and jaunty.

The beginning of the Beethoven sonata was slow and eloquent. He did not emerge entirely unscathed from the most difficult parts of the rest of the movement, and there were also occasional memory problems, but he played with spirit, and color. The second movement was very good, and always expressive, with lovely shadings. The third movement was playful and boisterous. He received an enthusiastic response from the audience after this work, and at other times during the program.

In the second half of the program he did something I remember him doing before, which is that he played the entire half from beginning to end (ie from the Scriabin through the Chopin sonata), without pauses, as if it were a six movement work. Harmonically, and dramatically this worked well.

The Scriabin Nocturne for Left Hand is a piece I’ve been fortunate to hear several times recently, and this performance was truly wonderful. Slow, moonlit, and thoughtful he made it sound surprisingly deep and dramatic. And the shimmering filigree passages, which pianists rarely have to play with the left hand, were exquisite.

Mr. Ferrati’s way with the Chopin Berceuse was, perhaps, a bit less to my taste than the rest of the program, with more “push and pull” in the rubato than other pianists use. Yet, it had some really interesting and individual ideas, and coloristic effects.

His performance of the Chopin sonata was very fine. The first movement was energetic and passionate. He did not play the repeat of the exposition, as do some pianists. Of course the beginning of the second movement was fast and intense, but what I was particularly listening for was what he would do with the beautiful middle section, in G-Flat Major. Mr. Ferrati did not disappoint. With subtle shifts in the rubato, and the ability to play shockingly softly, when appropriate, he brought out the poetry one hopes to hear in this movement. The funeral march began softly, yet fraught with emotion. But when the same material returned, after the poignant middle section, it was completely different, smoldering with tension. The last movement, perhaps the most bizarre thing Chopin ever composed, was very well-played, sounding surreal, and with splashes of color.

There was one encore, the D Minor Fantasy of Mozart. It is quite possible to play the beginning of the Fantasy in a very boring manner. But not if you’re an artist like Mr. Ferrati, who made the opening measures sound like an improvisation, with his fine understanding of color, and timing. There were other individual touches, too, one of which was a chromatic scale that sounded impressionistic, but in the context of this performance, worked!

One hopes Mr. Ferrati will return to play at the Festival next year!

19th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 25th, 2017

Rameau: Les Sauvages
L’Enharmonique
L’Egyptienne
Albeniz: Iberia, Book One
Liszt: Sonetto del Petrarca No. 104
Saint-Saens: Africa, Op. 89
Gregor Huebner: Five Latin Pieces

Let no one accuse Geoffrey Burleson of boring or unimaginative programming! One of his current projects is recording all the piano works of Saint-Saens, a most challenging example of which he played for us, and his interests in repertoire range from the Baroque to the contemporary. He plays with energy, daring and polish.

The first two Rameau pieces were notable for their remarkable harmonies, and modulations. The third one seemed to me a bit Scarlatti-like. He played it so fast that it was a bit difficult to enjoy the articulation of all those notes hurtling along, though I’m sure he played every single one. I had a similar reaction during Saint-Saens’ “Africa”. Perhaps the overall sweep of the composition is sometimes more important than the passage work, but the ears of a greedy listener (me) long to enjoy both.

Moving on to the first book of Iberia, Mr. Burleson’s Evocación was indeed evocative, and filled with longing. El Puerto was, in turn, tumultuous and exuberant, yet also mellow, and had beautiful melodic fragments. Fête–dieu à Seville was enjoyably quirky.

Liszt’s Sonetto del Petrarca No. 104 was not played, as by some pianists, as a “grand statement” but was sensitive, spirited, and often quite lovely.

Saint-Saens’ “Africa”, already mentioned, was a real tour de force. Though it has a beautiful, peaceful middle section much of it is pulsating and intense, with difficult cross-rhythms. Mr. Burleson played it at a blistering, uncompromising pace.

The last work on the official program was a group called Five Latin Pieces, written in 2004 by the German composer, Gregor Huebner. These challenging works, with Cuban and Argentinean influences, were impressively played. The first one began with a pummeling of the instrument leading into an interesting fugato. The second one had strong rhythmic motives. The third started with quiet tone clusters, and had modal fragments. The fourth sounded nostalgic, and also featured a jumpy rhythm, and an abrupt end. The final piece had an ostinato left hand, brilliant runs in the right hand, and a section where the pianist reaches into the instrument and strums the strings!

Mr. Burleson played one encore, a jazzy work with lively poly rhythms, the title of which I was, unfortunately, not able to find out.

In 1819, Anton Diabelli, a Viennese music publisher, composed a little waltz and sent it to dozens of composers—he wanted each of them to write and send him a single variation, which he’d publish together in one volume. Among those he asked was Ludwig van Beethoven, who was forty-eight years old at the time and had recently been studying Bach’s music. Beethoven accepted the challenge, but rather than write a single variation on the theme he decided, instead, to write thirty-three, and to issue it as one work, which he didn’t finish for four years—by which time he was also deep into the composition of his Ninth Symphony.

Alongside Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations are one of the twin peaks of the classical keyboard repertory. The music reflects the Olympian comedy of its origins and the profundity of Beethoven’s last works, with variations ranging from the mock-heroic to the whimsical to the wildly parodistic to the delicately rhapsodic to the austerely sublime. It’s also a piece that admits of a vast interpretive range, from the mercurial agitation of Friedrich Gulda’s studio recording to the severe grandeur of the one by Rudolf Serkin. In a performance on Friday night at Hunter College’s Kaye Playhouse, as part of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, I saw the pianist Jeffrey Swann deliver a thrilling performance that emphasized the composition’s contrasting extremes—the comedy was uproarious, the silences were celestial, the speed was reckless, the intricacy was ecstatic. Many of the best concerts I’ve ever attended have featured non-celebrity musicians in modest venues, and Swann’s performance takes its place among them.

Kaye Playhouse, Hunter College, New York
July 23, 2017

Johannes Brahms: Ballades, Opus 10 – Rhapsodies, Opus 79
Modest Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition

“I am a realist in the highest sense. That is, my business is to portray the soul of man in all its profundity.”
Modeste Mussorgsky (1839-1881)


Oh, the tragedy that Mussorgsky and Dostoyevsky–who died within one month of each other–never collaborated on either a song cycle or an opera. Not Brothers Karamazov or Crime and Punishment, those metaphysical morality plays. But the so physical, so visual damning Notes from the Underground or the searing House of the Dead. What these two artists–both mystics, esoteric Christ-believers, both so highly visual in their words and tones–might have created would have shaken the history of music.


(Though, granted, the intensities of both artists were so concentrated that they could have murdered each other in the process.)


What we do have from Mussorgsky are the operas (one towering, others intermittently good), the songs (my favorites), some salon piano music and of course Pictures at an Exhibition, which, when sung, narrated, chanted, exalted, glorified (let’s not use the prosaic “performed”) by Vladimir Feltsman becomes a thunderous paean to the composer himself.


And the performance yesterday afternoon from the sonorous aeries of Kaye Playhouse was something to either raise the hackles (of this listener) or raise the dead (for any Believers in the house).


First of all, this Pictures was not the warehouse of showoff techniques (à la Horowitz) or sentimental gallery-strolling or a recent performance by a matinee favorite who decided to erase the pictures and play a Russian-style Chopin


No, Moscow-born Vladimir Feltsman played like a painter of manic forces, unwilling or unable to hold back a visual tempest. Not that he rushed through the “gallery”. He could pause to hear the children in “The Tuileries” (not playing in unison but unpredictably stopping and starting). His “rich Jew” didn’t run along: he strolled, his pocket filled with gold ready to toss out to the musically sniveling “Poor Jew”.


Yet to prize this performance, one had to start with the very first notes, the “Promenade” phrases as popular, alas, as Strauss’s Zarathustra. Mr. Feltsman didn’t pause for an instant. His foot hardly leaving the pedal, he gave a quick stentorial call which somehow made us hear both an antique tromba, church bell resonances and piano.


It was a swift opening, whirling us without pause into the eerie “Gnomus”, and then into an “Old Castle”, which eschewed the usual tremolos and vibrato to give a gentle picture of Medieval life, perhaps that tune one which a troubadour would warble.


Now began the pictures with the “Promenade” between each one, and each “Promenade” varying with lilts, romance, and a tranquillo which positively pushed us into the surrealistic “Unhatched Chicks” ballet-ette.


For the final movements, one had to think of Yefim Bronfman. I have never heard him play this, but could imagine the power behind every note. Vladimir Feltsman has that same power, but it is less muscular than sensitive, even in the “Baba Yaga” central section. The feeling is foreboding, but one feels the confidence that even in the “Catacombs”, the Latin graffiti would be a blessing from an unknown deity. Not Dostoyevsky’s earthly Christ, but a Greek Titan, as the final notes reprised the bells of his original “Promenade” and became both Apocalypse and Hosanna together.


For those who have experienced many a piano Pictures this season, Mr. Feltsman’s, yes, was Mussorgsky, and yes, was great piano playing. But most of all it was, in Mussorgsky’s own words, “the soul in all its profundity.”


(Mr. Feltsman’s encore was a fine Brahms Opus 118 A Major Intermezzo, which was both gorgeous and unnecessary.)


From the gorgeous to the ghoulish: New York’s weekend subway system, which gives new meaning to the word “chaos”. To be brief, I was headed to 67th Street when the subway stopped for a while, took a short diversion and I wound up in the Badlands of South Dakota.


Okay, a slight exaggeration, but I did miss the opening Brahms Ballade. A sin of omission mainly because Vladimir Feltsman, who has been performing publicly for half a century, is a master of all. And anyhow, the grotesquerie of the First Ballade was a minor reflection of Mussorgsky’s later grotesque visions.


The last three were vivid youthful pictures. The inner melody of the Third Ballade had an exotic richness (Mr. Feltsman uses that resonating pedal without any excuses.) The B Major Ballade was offered not with solemnity but with the care of a rhapsodic singer. The first Ballade had a story attached, but Mr. Feltsman played the final three as if narrating other tales.


That was early Brahms, and Mr. Feltsman’s second cycle, the Opus 79 Rhapsodies showed a different side of the composer and the pianist. These were neither narratives nor pictures at an exhibition. The successful composer at that point gave us classical forms which almost burst out with passion. Mr. Feltsman has, when necessary, absolute taste. His passion was contained, allowing the music, with its oh so subtle colorations, to sing for itself.


That was indeed gorgeous playing from a pianist who needs no idiosyncrasies to make his point. Yet when the music demanded, the ravishing, the eccentric, the Dostoyevskyan demonization and canonization–yes, Mussorgsky’s piece–Mr. Feltsman was both Demon and Saint, creating an oscillating alien universe.

19th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 22nd, 2017

Scriabin: Prelude for the Left hand, Op. 9
Balakirev: Islamey – Oriental Fantasy, Op. 18
Scriabin: Nocturne for the Left Hand, Op. 9
Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit
Rachmaninoff: Five Preludes
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody in C-Sharp Minor, S. 244/2
with cadenza by Rachmaninoff

Vladimir Rumyantsev is a 30 year old Russian pianist who has studied at both the Moscow Conservatory and Mannes College. He has already won many competitions, and played in numerous important halls. He has a serious demeanor, and a no-nonsense, all-business approach to the instrument. And he’s quite a terrific pianist!

One could tell he breathes the lush romanticism of the Scriabin Prelude from the first note, and his playing of the other Scriabin work for left hand alone, the Nocturne, was equally impressive. He showed the patience to take plenty of time, and make it as gorgeous, and expressive as possible.

Islamey, which he played between the Scriabin pieces, had great zest, and there was wonderful clarity in the complicated figurations. By contrast, the middle section sounded expansive, and he later demonstrated a great understanding of pacing as he built up to a thrilling conclusion.

Mr. Rumyantsev’s Gaspard was excellent. In Ondine he again took his time, and reveled in the sensuousness of the piano’s sound. Le Gibet with those constant pulsing B-Flats surrounding the quiet drama of the work was never stagnant, as it is in some readings. In Scarbo, which starts with a sense of foreboding, he kept the audience emotionally off balance with the startling pauses, and mood shifts.

The first two Rachmaninoff Preludes were played a bit slower than one often hears them. However, the first, in D Minor, was played creatively, almost as a ballade, and the second in D Major, showed a loving attention to details. The G Minor had a strong opening section by contrast with the lush and beautiful middle section. The E-Flat Major was wonderful, with left hand comments on the right hand melody. The last of the group, the C Minor Prelude, was appropriately turbulent.

The Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 was played with elegance, swagger and imagination. The show-stopper, however, was the Rachmaninoff cadenza, which I had never heard before. We expect such things from Horowitz performances but this Rachmaninoff cadenza is, somehow, more shocking. One hears in it very much Rachmaninoff’s personality, as if he’s paying Liszt a visit. With glissandi, brilliant passage work, harmonies typical of the Russian composer, and one section where the mood is similar to that in his Polka de W.R. it was quite sensational!

Mr. Rumyantsev played one encore, something totally different from everything else on the program, but for its brilliance. It was Oscar Peterson’s arrangement of the blues song “Makin’ Whopee”, and boy, did he go to town with it!

19th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 20, 2017

Scarlatti: Four Sonatas
Schubert: Fantasy in C Major, D. 760 “Wanderer”
Liszt: Paraphrase on “Miserere” from Verdi’s “Il Trovatore”, S. 433
Bartok: Suite, Op. 14
Debusy: Masques
D’un cahier d’esquisses
L’isle joyeuse

Alon Goldstein is a very likeable musical personality. He bows in a modest way, and likes to make comments about the composers, and the music he plays, always concluding by thanking his audience yet again for being there. They respond to him warmly. His performance style is not at all flashy, but he’s an excellent pianist who plays a very enjoyable, and satisfying program.

The first Scarlatti Sonata, in C Minor (Mr. Goldstein says the composer called them “exercises”), was played sotto voce, and sounded very intimate, sometimes with a bell-like purity. This was followed by the jaunty C Major Sonata, where he showed his fine musicianship by varying the expression whenever a phrase, or section repeated. The minuet-like Sonata in G Major had a droll charm, as well as delicacy. The Scarlatti group ended with the amazingly adventurous E Major Sonata, which traverses a remarkable number of keys before returning to its “home base” of E Major.

Mr. Goldstein’s performance of the Wanderer Fantasy reminded me a bit of Robert Goldsand, not because he sounded like Mr. Goldsand, but because, like Mr. Goldsand, he goes his own way interpretively, not adhering to any preconceived notions of how a work should sound. The question is ”Does his way ‘work?’” It was quite different from other versions I’ve liked, beginning, for example with a not very fast first movement tempo, ending with a last movement which started at quite a clip, and having some nice, individual touches, such as a staccato left hand accompaniment in the third movement which I don’t remember other pianists bringing out. The answer for me was “Yes, indeed!” it ‘worked’; I liked this interpretation.

Liszt’s Paraphrase on the “Miserere” was dark and turbulent in the early A Minor section, then gorgeous and virtuosic when it shifted to A Major.

His playing of the Bartok Suite also had individual ideas, such as a pokey and whimsical mood in the first movement, an accusatory feeling in the second, a maniacal outburst in the middle of the third movement, and a fourth movement which sounded both nostalgic and surreal, and had a beautiful ending.

Though he is not a “colorist” in the usual sense, Mr. Goldstein captures moods very well, so his Debussy playing was effective. “Masques’’ was invigorating, thoughtful and exotic. “D’un cahier d’esquisses” was dream-like, and had a great calm. “L’isle joyeuse” was intense, fanciful, and ended with a massive sound.

Mr. Goldstein played one encore, the Second Argentinean Dance of Ginastera. Sounding sentimental, and as if from far away, it was gorgeous!

Jerome Rose opened the International Keyboard Institute and Festival Sunday night at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College

An evening with Jerome Rose at the piano is usually an evening well spent, especially if he has invited some of his best friends – in this case, three different landmarks for the instrument.

To kick off the 19th International Keyboard Institute and Festival Sunday night at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, Rose began with Beethoven’s Sonata No. 18, Op. 31, No. 3, a relatively gentle opening to an evening that would end in a blaze.

In the first movement, Rose–founder of the festival–captured its sense of hesitation and quiet humor, even if the rhythms could have been cleaner. But he surged forward in the second movement Scherzo, with fleet playing and agility in what sounds like a devilish moto perpetuo. Adopting a riskily fast tempo, at times the pianist seemed to be barely hanging on, but the excitement watching that happen was undeniable. At the end, the audience almost broke into spontaneous applause.

If the Menuetto might have been the high point, it was because Rose infused it with clarity and simplicity. Using a no-nonsense approach, slightly formal but with room for tenderness, the pianist reached one of the evening’s expressive high points. In the Presto finale, Rose found the required “con fuoco” immediately. Rhythms were again dicey, but offset by the pianist’s accuracy in the composer’s relentless dotted rhythms.

One of the challenges in Schumann’s Fantasiestücke is how to characterize the eight sections, in which the composer’s dual nature comes to the fore. From the gentle charm of “Des Abends” (“In the Evening”) to the humor of “Fabel” (“Fable”), Rose made Schumann’s colors vivid and distinct. The high point came with “In der Nacht” (“In the Night”), masterfully plotted, with the pianist capturing the union of Florestan and Eusebius in rhapsodic splendor.

Some inaccuracies in “Traumes Wirren” (“Dream’s Confusions”) were offset by Rose’s quiet wit, which flickered elsewhere throughout the evening. The sequences in “Grillen” (“Whims”) fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. In the tricky voicing of “Warum?” (“Why?”) and in the stormy left-hand rumblings of “Aufschwung” (“Soaring”), the pianist showed quiet concentration, unerringly letting the melodic line float to the surface. By the time he reached the “Emde von Lied” (“End of the Song”), melding heat and introspection, the scope of Rose’s conception became clear.

But for many in the audience, the pinnacle came after intermission, with Liszt’s complex Sonata in B minor. Rose’s pedigree in this repertoire is formidable: his 3-CD Liszt set was released in 2015 on Medici Classics, and was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque from the Franz Liszt Society in Budapest, Hungary.

Rose began with a moment of meditation, patiently waiting for the audience to relax into complete silence. The sober opening soon gave way to stormier sequences, and there was no denying the pianist’s heat and excitement. In the slow movement, nothing escaped the pianist’s gaze (and fingers), as he explored every corner of Liszt’s inspiration. And the pianist kept the ferocious fugue in line, with all voices audible. Rose kept his body language at a minimum, opting to pour energy into the composer’s unyielding torrents of notes.

The thundering penultimate section was gripping, full of adrenalin and a breathless prelude to the calm postscript that brings this vast landscape to a close. In Rose’s hands, the final sequence embodied a great mind coming to rest – actually two minds, composer and pianist. And after a short pause, the bravos, cheers and standing ovations began. No encore was offered, but none was needed.

After acknowledging the applause, the visibly exhausted pianist offered a few words of thanks to those attending, with brief encouragement to support IKIF. Rose deserves immense credit for programming such a beefy opening concert, while simultaneously masterminding the entire festival – two-and-a-half weeks of outstanding pianists, coupled with master classes and lectures.

19th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 16, 2017

Beethoven: Sonata in E-Flat Major, Op. 31, No. 3
Schumann: Fantasiestücke, Op. 12
Liszt: Sonata in B Minor


Last night the 19th season of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival began with the traditional opening night recital by Founder Jerome Rose. A major contribution to musical life in New York the Festival provides two weeks of recitals by pianists at all different stages of their careers, lectures, master classes and a competition. Formerly located at the West 85th Street home of the Mannes College of Music (which has since moved downtown) the Festival is now in its third season at Hunter College.


Jerome Rose has had a long and distinguished career. Winner of the Gold Medal at the 1961 Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition he has concertized all over Europe and this country, meanwhile devoting much of his time to teaching at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and then at the Mannes College, where he has served on the faculty for close to 20 years. His teachers included Leonard Shure and Rudolph Serkin, whose attitudes towards artistry, and the score were serious, indeed. As he told me in a recent interview, working with them “was like reading the Torah; the score was sacred.Your job was to interpret the essence of this music; what it meant. Not to play the way you ‘feel.’”


Mr. Rose has a similar devotion to the music. If there was occasionally a bit of rushing and a few wrong notes, there was no question of his passion and dedication to the music. He never takes the easy way out, such as using slower tempi, but throws himself totally into his work. His love and his passion for the music are always obvious.


The tempi for the Beethoven Sonata were generally on the fast side, including the third movement, which is usually played somewhat slower, but it worked this way. Mr. Rose brought out the witty syncopation near the end of the second movement. The last movement, though a bit messy, was brisk, indeed, but effective.


In the Schumann Fantasiestücke, which followed the Beethoven, Des Abends had a lovely lilt, and sensitivity. The beginning of Grillen was gruff, but a later section had great charm. Fabel had a nice jocularity about it whereas Ende vom Lied was played with determination and passion, though the middle section was light and even “cute.”

As a pianist whose specialities include Liszt, the B Minor Sonata is a very important work for Jerome Rose. In the interview he described it as not a normal sonata but “a grand opera” and also “an autobiography of Liszt’s life.” Mr. Rose’s approach was heroic, and his performance full of drama and turbulence. There was great power and there were some impressive octave passages, as well as beautifully played quieter sections.


After the Liszt Sonata Mr. Rose thanked the audience for their attendance, and (in some cases) years of support of the Festival, welcomed them to the new season, and said he hoped to see them at many of the upcoming events.

Alexander Kobrin
18th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 30th, 2016

Schumann: Andantino de Clara Wieck
From Concerto sans orchestra (Grande Sonate) in F Minor, Op. 14
Brahms: Sonata No. 2 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 2
Schubert: Sonata in B-Flat Major, D. 960

Alexander Kobrin is a powerful, confident pianist. Nothing ever sounds difficult for him, and, admirably, he commands a very wide range of dynamics from very loud (without banging) to impressively soft. Everything he does sounds carefully planned, and well thought out.

The first work he played, based on a theme by Schumann’s wife, Clara, is the third movement of what is known as the Schumann Concerto Without Orchestra. It is familiar to people who know Horowitz recordings. Starting slowly, in a ruminative manner, at other times it surged forward, and had moments when it came across as playful and spontaneous. And it featured the aformentioned excellent control of a wide dynamic range.

The Brahms Second Sonata, like the First, is relatively unknown, even among pianists, as only the Third Sonata has become an oft featured part of the “standard” repertoire. In the first movement the exposition featured power, yet also delicacy, the development was sensitive and thoughtful, and was then followed by the tumultuous recapitulation. The second movement was searching and very expressive, later becoming loud and insistent. The fascinating third movement has a forceful, yet humorous theme in B Minor, a contrasting upbeat trio section in D Major, and finally a return to the Scherzo theme, this time sounding more elaborate and triumphant. The last, remarkable movement began with a slow introduction which was followed by various themes with contrasting moods, what seemed like a witty hint at a Hungarian dance, and later a hymn – like religious sounding section and some trills, before concluding with several loud chords. Mr. Kobrin’s performance was strong and convincing throughout.

Schubert’s last Sonata is the opposite of the Brahms in that everyone knows it, plays it, has heard it many times, and compares new performances with the best versions one has already heard. Which is not surprising as it is one of the masterpieces of the literature.

There are different ways to approach the first movement, which is very long, especially if one does the repeat, as Mr. Kobrin did. A slow tempo seems to hint at profundity but sometimes adds even more “heavenly length” than is ideal, even while illuminating numerous interesting points. Indeed, Mr. Kobrin took the first theme at a very spacious tempo, though he played much of the movement very beautifully, and brought out many interesting features, such as modulations after rests. He went, without pause, into the second movement, which moved very well. His transition into the A Major section was very effective, and he caught the magical moment at the top of the last page of the movement where Schubert takes us into C major.

The third movement was fast and fleet and the B-Flat Minor trio was playful, with nice shadings, and those interesting off beat accents. The last movement began in a surprisingly slow and serious manner. The F Minor section was strong, but always featured a beautiful tone, and the conclusion was brilliantly played.

Mr. Kobrin played one encore, Der Dichter Spricht (The Poet Speaks) from Schumann’s Kinderszenen. It was very fine, lovely and thoughtful.

When Leopold Godowsky wrote of his sensational Berlin debut in 1900, he noted that every pianist and piano instructor in the city was in attendance. So it must be in New York, for a performer at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, a yearly two-week-long feast of classical keyboard musicianship and education held at Hunter College. This night, the penultimate to feature headlining performers at the Kaye Playhouse, Xiayin Wang pleased immensely both pianistic elite and ordinary classical music lover alike.

Program

Beethoven: Sonata in E Flat Major, Op. 31 No. 3 “Hunt”
Richard Danielpour: Bagatelles (World Premiere)
Schumann: Fantasiestücke, Op.12
Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit

Pianist and scholar David Dubal, with IKIF headliner Alexander Kobrin, presented a pre-concert program discussion with musical illustrations played by Mr. Kobrin. With Mr. Dubal’s words fresh in our minds, our ears were on the hunt for the musical depictions to come, as Ms. Wang appeared on stage with her long black hair down and her slate-gray gown nearly flowing over painted toes peeking through golden slingback sandals.

The Beethoven “Hunt” sonata was both a bracing and heartening introduction to the program. Ms. Wang set an eager tempo to the Allegro and Scherzo movements. She played the Minuetto in a serene and relaxed rhythm, disavowing a fixation on velocity while disproving the notion that this sonata lacks a slow movement. In the Presto, the chase was on. And whose perspective was depicted? As the movement unfolded and I began to visualize exhilarated pursuers, I noticed Ms. Wang’s foot had shed its golden sandal and was pedaling bare. Was this a show of allegiance not to the spur-shod huntsmen but to the velvet-pawed vulpine quarry?

At the hands of Ms. Wang, this spark—of perspectives and personalities in contrast—flickered, ignited and exploded throughout the program, not least with the next offering, the world premiere of Richard Danielpour’s Bagatelles. On the printed program, the Schumann had been scheduled for next in the order and Bagatelles third, following the intermission; but at the start of the concert a swap was announced. To the audience, this held the advantage of affording a few moments for reflection following the hearing of a striking, new composition. With Mr. Danielpour in attendance, Ms. Wang revealed the first Bagatelle with a searching and serene feel. Following were movements alternating between raucous and tranquil, insistent and reassuring, and containing contrasting emotions warring in the same movement. The effect was thoroughly modern, including enticements to all listeners (not only the pianists in the audience) with melody and tonality, and an abundance of excitement and of love. The final Bagatelle was my favorite, with echoes of the introduction to Mahler’s 9th symphony, but unlike with Mahler we had a complete movement in which to savor the euphoric sensation brought on by Mr. Danielpour’s lovely descending motive. The force of reason, through loving persistence, emerged victorious. What an honor if I am the first reviewer of a public performance of Bagatelles! Please listen to a recording of this piece if it becomes available, especially if performed by Xiayin Wang, but even if by an artist not in such close collaboration with the composer.

An attendee arriving after the intermission (and the program announcement), might be forgiven for hearing Fantasiestücke and taking it for Bagatelles, so closely in structure do the Schumann and Danielpour works align. The general audience aside, to the reviewer, the program switch added a challenge of tracing the conflicting-personality spark back 179 years to Fantasiestücke, the clear precursor to Bagatelles by its similar structure, as underscored by the pieces’ side-by-side inclusion in the program.

In preparation for the concert, I have been listening intently to recordings of the Fantasiestücke in order to take in the performance with an informed ear, and to set a course at last toward a love of the works of Robert Schumann. Ms. Wang gave my progress along this course a vigorous and heartfelt shove. Schumann wrote this work as an illustration and personification of his conflicting emotions, which he named Eusebius and Florestan, the former embodying his thoughtful and spiritual side and the latter the passionate and lascivious. Writing at age 27, he dedicated the work to a beautiful 18-year-old piano student to whom he would later become engaged, before ending their relationship abruptly. Eusebius took the first turn, with Ms. Wang’s gorgeous rendition of Des Abends (In the Evening), a lovely and tranquil introduction. Following was the voice of the passionate Florestan in Aufschwung (Soaring, an “upward swing”). Eusebius, the eventual victor, returned in the nick of time, just as I was again noticing Ms. Wang’s bared foot, she having left her sandals backstage at the intermission.

Bare feet were most appropriate for the start of Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit with the first movement named after and depicting Ondine (Wavelline), the water nymph who (as David Dubal had primed us), on being spurned in love by a mortal, sprays everything in sight as she departs with malicious laughter. How vividly did Xiayin Wang portray the playful mists and angry jets that Ravel wrote in the score! Ms. Wang then proceeded with the second movement, Le Gibet (Gallows), with its fateful bells tolling the turning corpse, reddened by the setting sun. With that imagery, accented by bright red toenails, Ms. Wang bade us turn away from the gallows and led us to the place, termed by Mr. Dubal the climax, the “red badge” of impressionistic piano virtuosity, the home of the demonic Scarbo. It was a thrill to see Scarbo played live, proof that a mortal human truly is capable of summoning the demon lying in this score. Under the control of Ms. Wang, Scarbo was terrifying to the audience, but not so terrifying to Ms. Wang, as she proved by gently touching her nose during a particularly hair-raising right-hand run—how can any recording capture such a moment? As Scarbo finally flickered and met his precipitous and twinkling end, our hands erupted in tumultuous applause for Ms. Wang.

The audience insisting on an encore, Ms. Wang played Oblivion by Clint Edwards, a romantic piece that seemed to have been composed to sing with lyrics, except during its wild and exciting middle section.

All being made well in the world, if only for a few hours, my own feet were floating just a bit as I made my way from the hall toward home, with reverberations in my mind of the beautiful and commanding performance of Xiayin Wang.

George Li
18th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 27th, 2016

Haydn: Sonata in B Minor, Hob. XVI:32, L. 47
Chopin: Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35
Rachmaninoff: Variations On a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42
Liszt: Consolation in D-Flat Major, S. 172
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, S. 244/2


George Li is a very busy young pianist who somehow manages to be a student at Harvard while traveling all over the world playing concerts. He has won many impressive prizes and awards, including the Silver Medal at the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition, a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, First Prize at the 2010 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and the 2012 Gilmore Young Artist Award. He has a remarkable technique – nothing seems too difficult for him, a beautiful tone, and a nice Romantic sense which always gives color and shape to the music he’s playing.

I liked very much his performance of the Haydn Sonata, which sounded like a surprisingly modern work in his hands. The first movement was warm, beautifully inflected, and thoughtful. The second movement was graceful, with elegant, precise ornaments, and the last movement sounded threatening, despite its sotto voce beginning. It featured one of the evening’s first displays of Mr. Li’s dazzling finger work.

The Chopin Sonata was very finely, and dramatically played. The first two movements were quite fast, indeed, though it was interesting how much slower he played the G-Flat Major middle section of the second movement. The third movement was appropriately solemn, and funereal, but the middle section in D-Flat Major moved along beautifully. In the last movement, one of the strangest, most abstract pieces ever written by Chopin, Mr. Li focused on the repetition of several rhythmic patterns. It seemed like a menacing whirlwind in the distance.

The Corelli Variations of Rachmaninoff began in a slow and spacious manner. It was alternately playful, athletic and powerful, and at all times played with technical brilliance. Some people might prefer for the time between variations, as well as the huge range of tempo changes between variations to be a little bit less, but it all “worked,” and Mr. Li held one’s attention the entire time. The coda, and soft ending were particularly effective.

After offering a lovely, moonlit, yet intense Consolation, Mr. Li launched into the Second Hungarian Rhapsody with swagger. This time one had the feeling that he was pushing his technical abilities to the max, and this was terribly exciting. As he played a very interesting coda which even a noted expert on such matters could not identify, one may assume it was by the pianist himself. In a somewhat different style, yet compatible with the Rhapsody, it led to a very fast, and exciting conclusion to the printed program.

Mr. Li’s first encore was the Liszt transcription of the Schumann song, Widmung, which he played in a lovely, sensitive manner.

The final encore was Horowitz’s transcription of the Carmen Variations. There are several performances of Horowitz playing it on Youtube, and at least three different versions that I’ve noticed. My “standard” for this work is the 1968 Carnegie Hall concert which was recorded for television. I’m not ready to say that I prefer Mr. Li’s version over Horowitz, though he’s sometimes more accurate (such as in the last E Minor section, into which Horowitz throws himself at kamikaze speed) but it was very brilliantly done. Indeed, only a real virtuoso would attempt this music. And that Mr. Li certainly is.

A Century of Musical Culture in New York: The Legacy of Damrosch, Mannes, Godowsky and Gershwin
Jerome Rose, David Dubal – Speakers
Steven Mayer, Daniel Berman – Pianists

This event was not exactly a lecture, nor a concert, but something in-between, with significant audience participation.

Jerome Rose began the meeting by pointing out that this is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Mannes School (now the Mannes College of Music at the New School), and paid tribute to the accomplishments of the Damrosch and Mannes families, which were related by marriage. Members of these families were responsible for founding the Institute of Musical Art, which later became the Juilliard School, the Mannes School and the Oratorio Society. Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky II, friends who were both musicians, did research on improving the quality of film for many years, and in 1935 patented Kodachrome, which made them both wealthy. Leopold Mannes contributed much of this new wealth to the support of the Mannes School. Another interesting relationship which was discussed was the marriage of Leopold Godowsky II to Frances Gershwin, the sister of George and Ira. Their son Leopold Godowsky III, a pianist and composer was thus heir to two pianistic traditions: that of his grandfather, Leopold Godowsky, and of his uncle, George Gershwin, and he maintained a lifelong interest in the legacies of both.

Most of the discussion part of the progrm had David Dubal leading a talk about the incredible number of important musicians who lived, and were active in New York since Carnegie Hall was opened in 1891, with Tchaikovsky conducting. Gustav Mahler, who was Musical Director of the New York Philharmonic, and whom Otto Klemperer considered the greatest conductor of all time, was also mentioned at length. After that, innumerable other composers, pianists and teachers from that time to this were mentioned, some by Mr. Dubal, some volunteered by the audience. often followed by witty and/or enlightening comments by Mr. Dubal. The centrality of the piano in musical life a century ago was described by Mr. Dubal, who said that in 1911 375,000 pianos were manufactured in this country.

Steven Mayer, whose performances are always full of pianistic brilliance, and who is the son of a composer, described growing up in a home where jazz, as well as classical and contemporary music were all influences. He spoke of Art Tatum, whose playing he described as a combination of Horowitz and jazz, and of Tatum’s mentor, Fats Waller, and played one work of each in his usual, high energy(!) style.

Daniel Berman gave a lovely, yet intense reading of the Rachmaninoff G-Sharp Minor Prelude. Later he gave an exotic, dreamy performance of Godowsky’s Gardens of Buitenzorg, followed by two Godowsky transcriptions, the Swan, which was particularly idiomatic, and Richard Strauss’ Ständchen, which featured, among other things, a sparkling right hand accompaniment, and an explosive climax. Mr. Berman is known for playing Earl Wild transcriptions of Gershwin’s music (I believe he gave the first performances of some of them) and offered Embraceable You, which showed how he clearly revels in the sound of the piano, and Summertime, which, despite all the elaborate ornamentation, conveyed the sleepy sense of summer time in the deep South. Mr. Berman’s last performance was of Willam Bolcom’s wonderful Graceful Ghost Rag, which sounded folksy and sentimental, yet had a lovely swing to it.

Schubert: Sonata in G Major, D. 894
Schumann: Kreisleriana, Op. 16


Jeffrey Swann is a very likable musical personality, as well as a very fine pianist. He always makes some brief and insightful comments on the music he’s about to play. This program consisted of a major work each by Schubert and Schumann. Mr. Swann said that, to 19th Century thinking, genius was related to suffering. Schubert, of course, lived only 31 years and was incredibly productive to the end. Mr. Swann said he considered Schubert’s victory over suffering that he “captured time,” ie. stalled its motion forward. And there were beautiful moments, especially in the first movement of the Sonata, where one could see Mr. Swann’s point.

The G Major is one of the very big Schubert sonatas, “sprawling” as David Dubal described it in his pre-concert lecture. Mr. Dubal also mentioned that he once asked Alfred Brendel if he thought some of the Schubert sonatas were too long. “Oh no!” said Mr. Brendel. “They are not long enough!”

The first movement, marked Molto moderato e cantabile, is a very atypical beginning for a sonata, but this is Schubert, who did not necessarily follow the traditional “rules” of sonata writing. What one really needs to do is gently “plant” the first chord, then set a spell with the first two measures, and then sustain it for a very long time (especially as Mr. Swann, unlike many other pianists, took the repeat!). He began the movement at what seemed a worrying slow tempo, but with great sensitivity, charm and an understanding of interesting modulations, made it work. The second movement was actually a bit faster than the first (the opposite of the usual relationship of the first two movements of a sonata) but was beautiful, played with warmth and love. The outbursts in the B Minor section were dramatic, and the coda was eloquent.

The third movement was brisk and jocular, and Mr. Swann brought out the quiet magic of the B Major trio section. Some noteworthy features of the performance of the last movement, which started at a leisurely pace, included the increased intensity when the dance step in C Major enters, the joyous moving up to E-Flat Major when it later returns, the “seriousness” of the C Minor section, which resolves to C Major, the thrilling move into B-Flat Major at the beginning of the coda, and the amazing, and highly unusual ending. Mr. Swann’s performance of this sonata was an “experience.”

Kreisleriana is a dark and bizarre work, often alternating between frenzied movements in G Minor and slow movements in B-Flat Major. Mr. Swann plunged headlong into the first movement, then reveled in the loveliness of the middle section in B-Flat Major. The second movement was lyrical, but quirky. The turbulent third movement was followed by the dreamy fourth. After the troubled fifth movement came the slow, and deeply introspective sixth. Changing the pattern, the seventh movement appeared to be in C Minor, but ended at a slow speed in E-Flat Major after a bracing fugato section in C Minor, which Mr. Swann played as fast as possible. Finally there was the eighth movement, which creeps in mysteriously in G Minor, then passes through some odd transformations, made more so by syncopations, and by a passionate D Minor section, before returning to G Minor and quietly, as Mr. Swann said, “dancing off into madness.” An impressive interpretation!

Mr. Swann played one encore, the A-Flat Waltz of Chopin, Op. 42, which was fast and frisky, yet sensitive, and ended with bravura.

Magdalena Baczewska - IKIF
18th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 20th, 2016

Chopin: Prelude, Op. 45
Chopin: Mazurkas, Op. 59
Szymanowski: Mazurkas, Op. 50, Nos. 15 and 16
Szymanowski: Etude in B-Flat Minor, Op. 4, No. 3
Chopin: Ballade No. 3 in A-Flat Major, Op. 47
Mozart: Sonata in A Major, K. 331
Brahms: Klavierstücke, Op. 119


Magdalena Baczewska’s recital came on the fourth evening of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, at Hunter College. One of New York’s major cultural summer happenings, now in its 18th year, it begins with a recital by Festival Founder Jerome Rose, which is followed by two weeks of recitals by artists at all different stages of their careers, plus lectures and master classes. It has something for everyone who loves the classical piano repertoire, and I try to attend as many events as time allows.

Magdalena Baczewska is a magnificent Chopin player! She does not play this music in the manner of Rubinstein, Friedman, Horowitz or anyone else. She has her own unique voice, and stylistically never falters. Her rubato is always natural, and she brings out wonderful changes of color during modulations. She never has the need to “shout,” or bang, yet always brings off high points successfully.

The Prelude with which she opened her program was elegant, and demonstrated her wonderful control of soft dynamics. The first Mazurka was playful and gracious, the second had charm and lightness, and the third was earthy, yet ended with an eloquently played coda. Equally impressive was the Third Ballade, with which the first half ended.

Of the three Szymanowski works Ms. Baczewska played, only the B-Flat Minor Etude, one of his most famous pieces, was familiar to me. It began with passion, but sounded emotionally spent by the end. Yet, as she plays this music as well as she does Chopin, I felt I knew the two Mazurkas, the first exotic and fantastic, the second very agitated with somewhat bizarre rhythms, very well after hearing her play them. This pianist’s technique is always there, her sound always beautiful and unforced, and her idiomatic understanding of this music is complete.

There was much to admire about Ms. Baczewska’s performance of the Mozart Sonata; original ideas and shaping of phrases, fine finger work and emotional engagement. But some people might prefer rhythms, especially in the first movement, to be a little straighter, and more “classical.”

One had the same feeling about the first Brahms Piece. Yes, it’s spiritual and ethereal, but perhaps does not need quite so much tempo fluctuation. The other three Pieces were very fine, the second with its lovely middle section in E Major, the third with its warmth and charm, and the fourth, displaying power, and drama.

Ms. Baczewska’s encore, the Chopin Nocturne in F-Sharp Major, Op. 15, No. 2, confirmed all my previous impressions of the pianist as a wonderful Chopin player, all the way to the exquisitely played coda.

Both participants and listeners will find something special at New York City’s irrepressible and irreplaceable International Keyboard Institute and Festival, as founder Jerome Rose tells Inge Kjemtrup.

The interview appears inside Pianist Magazine’s April/May issue (No 89) 2016.

Talk to Jerome Rose, pianist and founder of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, and he will give it to you straight: ‘The festival is in its 18th year, and we’re a staple of New York City musical life.’ This might sound like brash New Yorker attitude, but he’s probably right: critics and audiences seem to have taken this two-week long festival of all things piano to their hearts. The International Keyboard Institute and Festival (IKIF) is a ‘perennial favorite among piano aficionados’ said the New York Times, while the New Yorker pointed up the IKIF’s ‘tantalizingly, innovative and robust concert programs from a variety of international virtuosos, up-and-comers, and local heroes.’

Indeed, by all reports, a large part of the appeal of the IKIF is this annual coming together of established performers, the young-and-up-and-coming (several recent competition winners, such as George Li, who was a laureate in the Tchaikovsky, will take part this year), amateurs and general piano nuts. The variety of ages helps too, ranging from 12 to 80, says festival director Julie Kedersha.

It’s Kedersha’s challenging job to keep tabs on the 125 participants and 20-30 teaching staff, who collectively take over the music department of New York City’s Hunter College every July. Her task must be made harder by what Rose calls the ‘open door policy’ of the IKIF. ‘You’re not assigned to any teacher, you can study with anyone,’ he explains. ‘You can walk in and out of a room if you want.’ Though presumably not in the middle of your lesson.

Rose claims his programming comes from telling the guest artists, ‘play better than you did at Carnegie Hall and play whatever you want’, an approach that does lead to some diversity – and some playfulness. Rose persuaded concert pianist Dmitry Rachmanov to present a programme about Sergei Rachmaninov (no relation) and he put together an orchestral ensemble for the festival and dubbed it the Jäger Meisters Chamber Orchestra (‘Jäger’ means ‘hunter’ in German). I’ll drink to that.

More seriously though, Rose is keen to fête the great keyboard masters of the past and present, including those whose careers have, perhaps, deserved more attention. This year the IKIF features the French pianist Philippe Entremont, 75 years and basking in the light of a long career of French music and Chopin. Rose also has tributes to past keyboard masters such as Paderewski and Gilels.

Entremont’s recital (23 July) will be heavy on Chopin and French works, including Ravel’s Sonatine and ‘Alborada del gracioso’ from Miroirs. Geoffrey Burleson, who is recording Saint-Saëns’s piano music for Naxos offers a diverse recital with music by that composer. Other confirmed recitals so far are from Stanislav Khristenko, Jeffrey Swann and Magdalena Baczewska, with Rose himself on opening-night spot.

Rose has had a distinguished teaching and performing career (as a youngster in California he studied with Adolph Baller, mainly recalled now as Menuhin’s pianist). He was a young man when the idea of the festival came to him: ‘When I was 17 going on 18, I had a transformative experience going to Marlboro [the famous Vermont chamber music festival], played with Casals and Sascha Schneider, and I wanted to create a similar thing in the piano world.’ Rose, it seems, is in his element with IKIF.

If the concerts and classes aren’t enough, Rose adds, there are also the ‘beautiful acoustics’ of the Hunter College concert hall, the many available practice rooms, the Yamahas and Bösendorfers on tap, and the interesting lectures. By the end of my phone call with Rose, I’m nearly ready to reserve my place on his big city, big passion piano fest.

https://www.pianistmagazine.com/news/learning-the-piano/read-our-interview-with-jerome-rose-founder-of-the-new-york-keyboard

www.pianistmagazine.com

The Brazilian-born pianist, Arnaldo Cohen, won First Prize at the Busoni International Piano Competition in 1972. He has had a long career teaching at prestigious conservatories, such as the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, as well as a distinguished performing career. But he still plays with the strength and energy of a young man, and his recital last night was a very rewarding, as well as an invigorating experience. (Indeed, after getting up to bow following the demanding Bach/Busoni Chaconne, he was ready to sit down right away and continue with the even harder Handel Variations, but first had to rise again to acknowledge continued applause.)

Mr. Cohen’s playing of the Chaconne had an improvisatory quality, with more tempo fluctuation than one sometimes hears, but this was always organic and convincing. He produces a big, ringing, but always beautiful sound.

The Handel Variations began at a brisk tempo and, indeed, there was an athleticism to much of his playing. It was very satisfying to hear the power he brought to such highpoints as the last Variation before the Fugue. Yet, he always brought out contrasts, with the softer, sensitive parts played just as expressively. And, like a musician’s musician, there was always at least a subtle change in the expression of loud or soft variations when he played the repeats.

Mr. Cohen is a very fine Chopin player. One never thinks about his rubato, as it’s so natural. He plays with strength and virtuosity when needed, but always makes a convincing transition to the slow and gentle sections. Interestingly, he chose to play the Scherzi in an unusual order, ie. 1-4-3-2.

In the first Scherzo one noticed the power and ease with which he played, the beauty of the middle theme, and the Horowitzian interlocking octaves at the end. In the fourth Scherzo there were wonderful, splashing right hand figurations, and a hush of anticipation before the final return to the main theme. The third Scherzo had muscular octaves, whirlwind arpeggios, and a dizzying coda. The second Scherzo was also brilliantly played, at the end of which (pianists must have noticed this), Mr. Cohen did not take an extra split second before nailing the final cross hand jump.

Following an enthusiastic response, Mr. Cohen played one encore, a fast and puckish reading of Chopin’s Minute Waltz.

Last night’s program began with a disappointment, as well as a pleasant surprise. The disappointment was that Yuan Sheng would not be appearing. I had been looking forward to hearing him play a Bach Partita, as he is a wonderful Bach pianist. The pleasant surprise was that his place was taken by Dmitry Rachmanov, who performed a Scriabin group. Mr. Rachmanov is known for his performances of that composer, and, indeed, I heard him play an all-Scriabin recital last season at Zankel Hall. His playing of this music was very cultured and refined, yet strong, and always convincing.

Nina Lelchuk, as one could tell from the audience reaction, is a highly respected pianist and teacher. She is an assertive and idiomatic Chopin player. Her performances of the first and last Mazurkas were particularly fine.

Mykola Suk is a very individual pianist who reminds me, in some ways of Robert Goldsand. He has unusual ideas about pacing, and played parts of the 12th Hungarian Rhapsody of Liszt at remarkably slow tempi, yet got the piano to “roar,” and produced great excitement at climaxes.

José Ramos Santana gave a warm, elegant and loving performance of the three works from Iberia. One wonders if the atmosphere of a country could be expressed any better than that of Spain in this work?

I always get a kick out of Steven Mayer’s performances because of his innate musicality, combined with terrific technique and a high energy level. The lovely, flowing Silver Spring gave way to the jazzy (sarcastic? neurotic?) Masque from Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety and that, in turn, led to Hold That Tiger, which was a wonderful romp. If Mykola Suk reminds me in some ways of Robert Goldsand, Steven Mayer makes me think of Earl Wild, in whom virtuosity, popular themes and high culture all came together.

Gesa Luecker and Gabriele Leporatti gave a performance of the Messiaen work which was spiritual yet intense, and exotic, with beautiful, subtle shadings.

The final work on the program was the Wilberg arrangement of Themes from Carmen, played by Ms. Luecker and Mr. Leporatti, plus Claire Huangci and Eduard Zilberkant. With some added harmonies, it was played with great spirit and energy, and the ensemble was excellent. Perhaps the only way to hear this music with even more strength and electricity would be to hear the recording of Horowitz playing his own transcription at the famous Carnegie Hall televised concert!

In honor of the hundredth anniversary of the births of Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997) and Earl Wild (1915-2010), pianist, author and radio personality, David Dubal gave a talk about them, and included recordings of some of their performances.

Mr. Dubal said that Richter (whom he once hoped to interview, but never did meet) played in movie houses when he was young to make some money. His original aims were to accompany singers, and conduct. Then, surprisingly late, he heard the Chopin F Minor Ballade, and started to learn the solo piano repertoire. Despite this unusual start he produced a staggering legacy in recordings, covering a huge repertoire.

Mr. Dubal finds in Richter a "dark quality in a lacerated soul."

Glenn Gould, who admired Richter, said Richter's recordings were uneven because he didn't know how to go about organizing a recording, and offered to produce a Richter record. Probably to head this off, Richter said he would let Gould produce one of his recordings if Gould, who no longer performed EXCEPT in the recording studio, would play a live concert which Richter would arrange.

Among other things, Mr. Dubal said:

Richter refused to perform the Emperor Concerto of Beethoven because his teacher, Heinrich Neuhaus, played it so well.

In later years he performed in the dark, so that the audience would focus on the music, not the performer.

He almost never played transcriptions.

He refused to teach.

Richter was the dedicatee of Prokofiev's Ninth Sonata, and performed the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth.

In addition to seeing a film in which Richter plays Franz Liszt, we heard recordings of him performing:

Moussorgsky - Great Gate of Kiev, from Pictures At An Exhibition
Liszt: Feux Follets
Liszt: Transcendental Etude No. 10 in F Minor
Haydn - Sonata No. 50 in C Major, last movement
Rachmaninoff: Prelude in B-Flat major, Op. 23, No. 2
Rachmaninoff: Prelude in C Minor, Op. 23, No. 7
Prokofiev: Gavotte from Cinderella (excerpt)
Beethoven: Sonata No. 23 in F Minor ("Appassionata"), Op. 57, last movement (excerpt)

The Great Gate of Kiev showed the strength and solidity for which Richter was famous. Feux Follets, which, like the previous recording was from his famous 1958 Sofia recital, was fast and fearless or, as Mr. Dubal, described it "Mendelssohn turned diabolical!"

The Liszt Transcendental Etude was staggering (the fastest there is, said Mr. Dubal), and the Rachmaninoff Preludes were similarly impressive.

Interestingly, Richter's favorite composer, according to Mr. Dubal, was Haydn, the last movement of whose 50th Sonata we heard.

In contrast to Richter, Earl Wild was someone David Dubal knew well, and many of us remember him from his many New York appearances, including recitals at this Festival up until 2005. Mr. Dubal played large sections of an interview with Wild made that year, in anticipation of Wild's 90th birthday.

As there were more than a few technical problems, and because of time considerations, the Wild section of the program was a bit shorter than the Richter.

Concerning famous people he encountered, we learned that Wild sometimes substituted for Oscar Levant playing Rhapsody in Blue, that he knew Gershwin (Wild: "Gershwin, at a party, sat at the piano as if it was a throne!"), and that he enjoyed his lessons with Egon Petri, especially when they improvised for each other.

Mr. Dubal referred to Earl Wild's almost 900 page autobiography A Walk On the Wild Side, which was released after his death (and reviewed by me for the Classical Music Guide on September 7th, 2011). It did seem ironic that one thing Wild told Mr. Dubal was not to be jealous of other people, as that book was seen by some as a last chance to get even with MANY people (including several people I knew well!).

His sense of humor, and his generosity were also mentioned. Regarding the former I recall a master class in which Wild imitated a woman playing a Chopin Etude with all the expressivity in her body language, and none in the sound coming out of the instrument. Regarding the latter, Mr. Dubal once asked Wild if he had the Schumann Fantasy and the Liszt B Minor Sonata currently in his fingers? "Yup" he answered both times. Would Wild be willing to come play for a class at a school for the blind where Mr. Dubal was going to speak about those works? "Sure" said Wild. And he did.

We listened to recordings of Mr. Wild play:

Rameau/Godowsky: Tambourin
Chopin: My Joys
Gershwin/Wild: the Man I Love

The Tambourin was delightful, and My Joys was particularly beautiful, almost magical. The Man I Love was passionate and absolutely gorgeous.

It was good to have a chance to hear, and think more about these wonderful musicians from the recent past.

Jeffrey Swann is a natural-born entertainer, as well as a very fine pianist. Before playing each work, or group, he picked up a microphone and told stories about the composer whose music he was about to play, the works themselves, or both, swaying gently to and fro as he spoke. His comments were informal, informative, and anything but dry and academic.

Mr. Swann's approach to Mozart includes playing all the repeats, often adding, or changing ornaments in the repeat, and bracing tempi for fast movements. Thinking, I suspect, in operatic terms, he also uses more rubato in this music than most pianists, which can be seen as expressive, or a bit excessive, depending on your point of view.

The Beethoven Sonata was very effective. The first movement had a lovely flow and the second movement was played with great spirit, and a wide dynamic range, as was the last movement, in which he threw himself into the knotty sections with particular enthusiasm.

As he played so much music with many notes on this program it was indeed interesting to hear the sensitivity with which Mr. Swann played the short third movement. It was so good I listened to it later on the webcast, principally to hear again the perfectly graded diminuendo in measures five and six. The ability to do that is one sign of an artist I'd like to hear again.

The second half of the program was all-Liszt, and Mr. Swann began with the 12th Hungarian Rhapsody, played with great energy and dash. He played the last section terrifically fast, which may not be the easiest (and certainly not the safest!) way to get all the notes articulated, but was wonderfully exciting.

The Historical Portraits, which are probably unknown to most people, are a group of seven pieces dedicated to Hungarian patriots, most of whom apparently met a tragic end. They are, appropriately, dark works. Mr. Swann played three of them, in a quasi-sonata manner, ie. with the quietest one in the middle. The first Portrait was full of foreboding, then later turned absolutely wild. The second one began with a four note motive which was moved all over the place, then developed. It seemed to show a mood of searching, and had later moments of grandiosity. The third Portrait sounded threatening and tortured, but faded away to a delicate ending in D Major.

The Spanish Rhapsody was excellent. The pianist savored the contrasts in this brilliant work, playing calmly, or in the grand manner and with great passion as the various sections demanded, and the audience reaction at the conclusion was enthusiastic.

Mr. Swann played one encore, the F-Sharp Major Nocturne of Chopin. It was elegant and spacious, and ended gorgeously.

The revelation of the pianist Marc-André Hamelin’s perfectly conceived recital on Sunday evening at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College didn’t come in one of the Liszt or Chopin pieces. It was the contemporary work sandwiched between them: Yehudi Wyner’s “Toward the Center,” a solo written in 1988 to commemorate the retirement of a longtime teacher at the Yale School of Music.

It begins with a brazen, almost stentorian flourish that’s left to resonate before the pianist proceeds, as if with caution, and then suddenly dives again into thickets of activity. Contrasts emerge, but subtle ones. The mood grows reflective; fragments of melody keep coming to subdued endings, after which the music seems unsure how, or even if, it should proceed.

There’s a section dogged by a sober three-note motif, and then pristine scales, like descending staircases made of ice. Near the end, the music starts shyly to swing, softly moving toward the keyboard’s heights before resolving in a light tolling, growing ever fainter.

The piece is a little masterpiece, quiet and glowing, and Mr. Hamelin, with his preternatural clarity and control, qualities that in him don’t preclude sensitivity and even poetry, was an ideal interpreter on Sunday, when he appeared as one of the highlights of the 16-day International Keyboard Institute & Festival. When the performance ended, and Mr. Wyner was called to the stage, he bowed not to the audience but to Mr. Hamelin, giving gratitude where it was due.

“Toward the Center” wasn’t just thrown into the recital, a nod to contemporary music. Its changeable emotions seemed to emerge organically from the five Liszt works on the first half of the program, and its lyrical impulses led sensibly into Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 at the end.

Those Liszt pieces were divided into two sets: first, three delicate studies and then two of his deliriously virtuosic arrangements of operatic themes. Mr. Hamelin more than meets the technical requirements of this second group, but the colors he brought to the quieter pieces were even more impressive.

The first from the set of three “Apparitions” (S. 155) began with haziness in the left hand, cut with crystalline precision in the right. Mr. Hamelin drizzled unexpected curls of ornamentation into the regularity of “Waldesrauschen” (S. 145, No. 1). These pieces pointed not just to Mr. Wyner’s work, but also to Debussy’s glittering “Reflets dans l’eau,” played as an encore.

Mr. Hamelin’s restraint, even when he’s ferocious, gave Chopin’s “Funeral March” sonata a particularly somber cast. In the third movement, which gives the work its nickname, the lullabylike interlude was more earthly than spiritual, an evocation of what we leave behind.

The 17th International Keyboard Institute and Festival is now underway at its new home, Hunter College. Filling the second half of July with nightly recitals, lectures, master classes and more, it is a mecca for those who love the piano and its repertoire. Two new features this year are a lecture by David Dubal before each recital, and the streaming of these lectures and the recitals. This new technology and the speed with which programs are assembled for online viewing is remarkable. Already the entire programs of the first two evenings can be viewed at the Festival's website (http://www.ikif.org).

Opening night followed IKIF tradition with a recital by Festival Founder and Director Jerome Rose. Last night it was the turn of Marc-André Hamelin to take the stage.

A Hamelin recital is an "event." He is one of the great pianists of the day. Not only a stupendous virtuoso who can play the big works of composers like Liszt and Rachmaninoff, he also has a probing intellect that leads him to perform less often heard works, ie the music of CPE Bach and Janacek and many others, as well as challenging contemporary pieces. Mr. Hamelin also continues the tradition of virtuosos who compose music. With such a command of the instrument, as well as a penetrating yet sensitive understanding of the works he plays, one can appreciate them in a rarefied state, as Mr. Hamelin has apparently surmounted the struggle to play even the hardest ones with apparent ease.

The first three works on the program were played without pause. Waldesrauschen and Un sospiro are well-known pieces but I had not heard Apparitions before. Does one usually notice the beauty of Liszt compositions, or just their brilliance? Apparitions emerged from very close to silence, and was quite lovely; far from "scary" as the name might suggest. This, and the following two pieces were gorgeously played. One was aware of Mr. Hamelin's wonderful finger work at times, simply because it made the music possible, not for its own sake.

By contrast, he went to town with the two operatic paraphrases. Mr. Hamelin played with great power, and often at terrific speed. In the Reminiscences de Norma there were sections that were wistful and tender. In other sections, with certain melodies and fast octaves underneath, and later, with a melody, bass line and fantastic figurations all at the same time, the effect could be hair-raising.

"Toward the Center," by Yehudi Wyner, is a 17-minute work which might be thought of as Romantically inspired with a contemporary harmonic language. Parts of it were pulsating, others poetic. It had some lovely, melodic material but also some dramatic outbursts. Mr. Hamelin, who, interestingly, turned pages for himself, practically dared his audience to not pay attention near the end by gradually diminishing the volume to almost nothing. The region between that, and no sound at all is so small, but, oh, how impressive it is when a pianist can successfully negotiate it!

One listens to the Chopin B-Flat Minor Sonata, which any pianist has heard dozens, if not hundreds of times, to hear what new ideas a performer brings to it. One couldn't help but notice the incredible drama at the end of the first movement (which led some people to applaud) or that the first two, fiendishly difficult movements did not have the sense of struggle in them that one often hears in the hands of a lesser pianist. In the last movement, perhaps the strangest work of Chopin, which sounds like it was composed in a later era, Mr. Hamelin focused on a few motives while surging forward with the rest of the material. But what particularly captured my interest was the way he played the D-Flat section in the middle of the funeral march movement. It was slower, wondrously expressive and deeper than in most performances.

Mr. Hamelin played one encore, a lovely (appropriately) flowing reading of Debussy's Reflets dans l'eau.

Haydn: Andante and Variations in F Minor, Hob. XVII:6
Federico Gardella: Invenzione del Margine (2014) World Premiere
(dedicated to Massimiliano Ferrati)
Beethoven: Sonata No. 21 in C Major (“Waldstein”)
Chopin: Andante Spianato e Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op. 22
Daniele Bravi: Solo (2008-11)
Prokofiev: Sonata No. 7 in B-Flat Major, Op. 83

Massimiliano Ferrati has a very likable musical personality. He plays with passion, commitment and ideas, and he always produces a beautiful tone. Most of this recital was very fine, indeed, and his audience listened, and reacted with great enthusiasm.

He opened with the Haydn Andante and Variations, which is sometimes rather blandly played. Mr. Ferrati’s performance had the best of both classical and romantic elements. Against a rather strict rhythm he did everything he could with expressive possibilities, such as playing repeats with a different inflection, bringing out changes of color and interesting modulations, showing off the rhythm of the syncopated variation, and playing on a large, dramatic scale.

The Gardella Invenzione was a highly kinetic work, and seemed to consist of several motives, one of which hit the keyboard running and headed for the hills (actually, the opposite ends of the instrument), a second having a soft splash of notes in tone clusters, and the third being simply a low note or two.

Mr. Ferrati had a bright and buoyant approach to the first movement of the Waldstein Sonata, with a lovely musical lead in to the second theme, big swirly arpeggios in the development, and a dramatic “drumroll” leading into the recapitulation. The main theme of the last movement was beautifully floated and had just the right amount of pedal, fortunately not imitating many pianists who, forgetting that the pedal on Beethoven’s piano sustained much less sound, create musical “mud” there. He went for the jugular in the C Minor section, and had a great “massing of forces” leading into the coda, which was wonderfully fast.

The Andante Spianato was one of the high points of the program. The tone was gorgeous, there were numerous subtleties of sound, phrasing and rubato, and it was played lovingly, and with great spirit. The introduction to the Polonaise was appropriately fast and lively but there were some problems with focus and memory in the Polonaise. Also, the music sometimes seemed to plow on a bit long without a change of sound. Still, there were some wonderful ideas and moments, and the end was strong.

The Bravi work, Solo, was a conversation between several different motives with interesting pedal effects, which eventually slowed, giving an almost mesmerizing effect, repeating over and over, I believe, the notes E, D, C#, E#, G#, F#.

The first movement of Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata marched vigorously ahead, except in reflective moments, and was finely executed with impressive clarity. The main theme of the second movement was beautifully played, and the soaring middle section was very dramatic and effective. Mr. Ferrati launched into a propulsive reading of the last movement, briefly had some memory issues, then recovered, staged a finely gauged, but eventually huge crescendo near the conclusion, and ended in brilliant fashion. The audience reacted with cheers, and a standing ovation.

Schumann: Fantasy in C Major, Op. 17
Takemitsu: Rain Tree 2
Chopin:
Nocturne in F Major, Op. 15, No. 1
Nocturne in B Major, Op. 62, No. 1
Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23
Waltz in A Minor, Op. 34, No. 2
Tarantella in A-Flat Major, Op. 43
Ballade No. 3 in A-Flat Major, Op. 47
Scherzo No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 31


A wonderful exponent of the grand Romantic style of pianism is the Japanese pianist, Akiko Ebi, who performed last night. Though she is capable of pulling out all the stops in big dramatic works, what impressed me over and over during this program was the incredible subtlety and beauty of her playing in soft and intimate music.

Although her performance of the first movement of the Schumann Fantasy began, appropriately, with the grand gesture, it was the gentle parts of much of the rest of the movement that particularly drew my attention. The second movement was alternately assertive and playful, and the pianist did not take the easy way out when it came to the difficult coda; she played it fast, and still got all the difficult jumps. As if preparing to tell a tale, Ms. Ebi played the introduction to the main theme of the third movement, and then the theme itself with heartfelt expression. She stretched out the coda so effectively that one was, indeed, loath to part with this music. At the conclusion of this first work the audience greeted Ms. Ebi with the first of many “Bravas!”

Ms. Ebi concluded the first half of the recital with Takemitsu’s Rain Tree 2, a lovely, lyrical and exotic miniature which ended with (as the artist played it) an astoundingly soft low D.

Ms. Ebi was in her element in the second half of the program, playing works by Chopin. She does not sound like any other pianist, but, by definition, a Romantic pianist is a unique individual. And her understanding of the style of this music is such that her interpretations were always convincing, particularly concerning her use of rubato. Often she was all over the place, rhythmically, but always where she SHOULD be! A few high points:

The aforementioned rhythmic flexibility and gorgeous playing of the B Major Nocturne’s theme, when it returned with continuous trilling, and the coda.

The lively playing of the Tarantella, and the way she poured on the intensity and speed at the end.

The manner in which Ms. Ebi handled the poetic aspects of the last two big works, then ended powerfully.

But If I had to pick one piece, the performance of which was more “special” than any other, it would be the A Minor Waltz. I was reminded of the great Chopin pianist, Moritz Rosenthal, not because Akiko Ebi sounds like him, but because he interpreted everything in the score. That does not mean he imposed anything on the music, but that he found something to say with, or through every bit of it. There was no “down time” or filler space in his interpretations. Likewise, as Ms. Ebi played this Waltz there was constantly something beautiful, even magical happening. Quite amazing!

Ms. Ebi played two encores, also by Chopin, the Berceuse, and a particularly expressive Aeolian Harp Etude.

The audience reacted with enthusiasm, affection and admiration.

Beethoven: Sonata No. 13 in E-Flat Major, Op. 27, No. 1
Rachmaninoff: Morceaux de Salon, Op. 10
M. C. Graves: Currency
Chopin: Twelve Etudes, Op. 25


Before this concert started IKIF Founder and Director Jerome Rose came to the stage to give his usual reminder to turn off cellphones and electronics, then added some news the audience was clearly happy to hear: That despite reports to the contrary, it is the intention of the management to hold the Festival again next summer, though the location has not yet been determined. (Mannes College will be moving next year, and apparently will not be able to provide space for the IKIF in the summer of 2015.)

The young Russian-American pianist Alexandre Moutouzkine makes one aware of how inadequate stereotypical expressions are when describing some of the remarkable young musicians before us today. As we have learned not to make assumptions about pianists necessarily having a proclivity for the music of composers of their own ethnicity, so, too, we see more and more that describing pianists such as Mr. Moutouzkine as “serious musicians” versus “virtuosos” makes no sense. Mr. Moutouzkine is a sensitive, thoughtful pianist who never plays a note outside of a musical context. And one hell of a virtuoso, too!

The opening of the Beethoven Sonata had a lovely, natural flow, and the dynamic contrasts in the second movement were well displayed. Most impressive, for me, was that I heard the second and fourth movements with a clarity I hadn’t heard before because of the pianist’s astute gauging of fast, but not excessively fast tempi, minimal pedaling and, of course, those wonderful fingers of his.

The Morceaux de Salon are not Rachmaninoff’s best pieces. Only one or two of them were familiar to me. But I enjoyed these performances, which were given with a consummate understanding of the composer’s idiom. The ruminative Nocturne, the Barcarolle, which had a shimmering accompaniment to a theme which seemed to express longing, the nostalgic Melodie and the smoldering Romance contrasted with the frothy Waltz, the controlled wildness of the Humoresque and the high spirited Mazurka.

The pianist addressed the audience before playing Currency, by his friend, Michael Christopher Graves, who was present, but said he would not reveal exactly what the piece represented. This mystery will be revealed, it seems, when he plays it again at his upcoming recital at Merkin Hall. If I heard clearly, it seems to be based on a motif of four notes, all within the distance of a major third, which is then turned around, played against itself in another voice, and later develops further with very brilliant passagework. Mr. Moutouzkine performed this enormously complicated work from memory, and played with remarkable clarity while pummeling the instrument.

Chopin expanded the technical horizons of the piano as well as the repertoire with his etudes. But an audience is not interested to hear the struggle of the obstacles the performer faces. It wants to hear the obstacles overcome with grace, ideas, imagination and artistry. Which Mr. Moutouzkine did. With apparent ease.

Among the highlights:

The sotto voce playing of the fourth (A Minor) etude, with several original touches.

The more serious approach to the fifth (E Minor) Etude than the “happy frog jumping about” Rubinstein interpretation (though I liked that, too), and with a particularly gorgeous playing of the melody in the middle section.

The ease with which Mr. Moutouzkine played the thirds etude, allowing him to do lovely things with the accompaniment despite the great speed.

The speed with which he played the 10th Etude (faster than Lhevinne), his bringing out (as he also did in other etudes) of interesting middle voices, and the increasing intensity with which he approached the end of the series. One item which might have been a bit more effectively gauged was that he was already playing so loudly in the last etude it was impossible to get any louder in the final C Major section.

If I had to pick one etude which impressed me the most it would probably be not one of those already mentioned, but the seventh, in C-Sharp Minor. Mr. Moutouzkine wrung all possible expressivity out of it with a huge range of dynamics and sometimes extreme, but always effective rubato. A high point of the concert, indeed.

The recital concluded with Lecuona’s delightful and exuberant Mazurka Glissando.

This is an pianist I’d like to hear again!

Pianist, author and radio personality David Dubal believes that America is a great country but that no one is interested in art anymore; that we are in need of “artistic evangelism.” He also says that pianists are his favorite people.

In a lecture of almost two hours he played many examples of great performances, told many stories, and expressed more than few provocative opinions. One was never bored. Below is a description of some of what we heard.

The first pieces we heard were the Preludio and the Second Etude from Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes, brilliantly played by Jerome Rose.

There were several performances of Rachmaninoff and Hofmann. Nobody but nobody has fingers that can play like them today, said Mr. Dubal, adding that Horowitz told him “I don’t know what kind of a tree I would be, if I were a tree, but Rachmaninoff is a REDWOOD!”

We heard both Rachmaninoff and Hofmann play Mendelssohn’s Spinning Song. The tempi were similar but Rachmaninoff’s performance was patrician, with that slightly odd pause before the return of the main theme, whereas Hofmann’s was more quirky, bringing out interesting voicing and accents.

David Dubal maintains that one could write a book about how Rachmaninoff plays the Chopin C-Sharp Minor Waltz. This performance, which lacked nothing, included a marvelous bringing out of an inner voice in the thumb, the ultimate in grace and precision, plenty of rubato, though never too much, and the right expression and feeling in each section. Indeed, Rachmaninoff didn’t play it in a “straightjacket,” as happens too often today, said Mr. Dubal.

Jerome Rose asked Mr. Dubal how Chopin might have played this work. Mr. Dubal replied that a Chopin performance would have been very soft, brought out more voices, and would have included a lot of pedaling.

Before a dizzying version of Chopin’s Minute Waltz by Hofmann, we heard Clara Schumann’s student, Fanny Davies, give a slow, throbbing and quite deep account of the second piece of Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze.

Next, came the classic performance of Paderewski playing his G Major Minuet, courtly and dignified in the main theme, surging and powerful elsewhere.

Mr. Dubal contrasted the performances of Chopin’s Etude in Thirds by Lhevinne and Friedman, and also played for us the alternately quivering and blazing Liszt transcription of Schumann’s Frühlingsnacht. The sound on the Friedman recording was not very good at all, typical of many Friedman recordings. One wonders what someone with the ear and expertise of Jon Samuels or Allan Evans could do to improve it?

We heard Benno Moiseiwitsch (who Mr. Dubal claimed was Al Capone’s favorite pianist!) play Liszt’s la Leggierezza (using the Leschetizky coda, not the less elaborate original coda) with apparent effortlessness and incredible fleetness.


“Rhythm is respiration” according to Mr. Dubal. There followed a magical performance of Cortot playing his own transcription of the famous Brahms A-Flat Lullaby. Indeed, no one personifies the idea of rhythm as respiration better than Cortot, who was incapable of playing prosaically.

We listened to a recorded interview of David Dubal talking with Horowitz about Rachmaninoff and Scriabin, both of whom he met. Horowitz said that Rachmaninoff accompanied Horowitz on the second piano of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto. (What one would give to hear that accompaniment!) And we heard Horowitz playing Rachmaninoff’s G Major Prelude, making of it a miniature, but very dramatic tale.

Horowitz played for Scriabin when he was 11 or 12 years old, just a few hours before Scriabin was to give a major recital, and the poor man was very nervous, in anticipation. According to Horowitz, after hearing the audition, Scriabin told Horowitz’s mother that her son would become a great pianist, but that he should also be a well-educated, and cultured man. Mr. Dubal pointed out that Horowitz later did a lot for Scriabin’s music, having played five of his sonatas, and other works. Horowitz did not disagree. We heard Horowitz’s recording of the C-Sharp Minor Etude of Scriabin, Op. 42, No. 5 in a reading that was wondrously expressive and passionate.

The program concluded with something I had never heard before, Scriabin’s own playing, in a 1911 Welte-Mignon recording, of his D-Sharp Minor Etude, which we know well from the playing of Horowitz, and other virtuosos. Though I am always suspicious of how accurately Welte-Mignon recordings represent pianists, having heard my teacher, Bruce Hungerford, say that such of a recording of his teacher, Ignaz Friedman, sounded not a bit like Friedman, Mr. Dubal believes this is a fairly good representation of Scriabin’s playing. Mr. Dubal thinks it’s even better than Horowitz’s famous interpretations. Most of it is slower than Horowitz plays it, though it ends powerfully, but better? I’m not sure I agree, and have to think some more about that.

But isn’t that the point of Mr. Dubal’s always interesting lectures? To present new performances and ideas to his audience, and get them thinking?

Gao Ping: Autumn Pond (2012)
Debussy: Twelve Preludes, Book 1
CPE Bach: Fantasie in F-Sharp Minor, H. 300, Wq. 67
Beethoven: Andante Favori, WoO 57
Beethoven: Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 (“Waldstein”)

Yuan Sheng is a musician’s musician. He always plays with taste, power and refinement, a beautiful tone and an excellent understanding of the style of each composer. Though he is particularly well known for his playing of the music of JS Bach and Chopin he included neither of them on this concert, offering, instead, an interesting combination of standard and little-known repertoire.

Gao Ping’s Autumn Pond, the first work he played, is a lovely eight minute piece, reflective and nostalgic, with an “impressionistic” feeling. Despite the extensive use of fourths, and other harmonies that go rather far afield from where it starts, much of the work seems to be based in, or near, G Major.

Mr. Sheng’s playing of the Debussy Preludes was wonderful! Not just beautiful and sensuous, as one would expect, but deeply thoughtful as well. Among other qualities he excels at is very fine control of the lower end of the dynamic range. One noticed this particularly in the incredibly soft but controlled final chord of Voiles (Veils), and the way Le vent dans la plaine (The Wind on the Plain) simply evaporated at the end. He handled beautifully the contrast of the exuberance, and longing of Les collines d’Anacapri (the Hills of Anacapri) leading into the desolation of Des pas sur la neige (Footsteps In the Snow), which led, in turn, to the menacing Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest (What the West Wind Saw). And La cathédrale engloutie (The Engulfed Cathedral) was glorious, when it arose out of the deep.

The CPE Bach Fantasie includes some showy passagework, interesting modulations and declamatory gestures. Though Yuan Sheng played it very well I was not overwhelmed by the music.

By contrast, I was very taken with Mr. Sheng’s performance of Beethoven’s Andante Favori. Of course, there is much that is subjective, but when you hear someone play a piece and you get the feeling “That’s exactly how this should sound!” it means you’re really impressed! Lyrical, gracious, not metronomic but with subtle shifts in tempo (one was reminded of David Dubal’s comment the other night “Rhythm is respiration”) and a beautiful change in color where the piece briefly visits D-Flat Major, this interpretation was a happy experience for this listener. Plus, in the extended right hand octave section, which I heard no less a pianist than Bruce Hungerford play over and over and over, to achieve a perfect take for his recording, Mr. Sheng hit not a wrong note.

One had the sense that he might have been a bit tired by the time he got to the Waldstein Sonata, where he experienced some memory problems in the outer movements. And yet, it contained a lot of fine playing, with thoughtful tone and tempo adjustments in the first movement, an expressive second movement, and much lovely playing in the last movement, the final page of which went out in a blaze of glory.

Yuan Sheng played one encore, Liszt’s Liebestraum No. 3. It was brilliantly executed, and exquisite.

There is always a downside in describing a young artist like the brilliant New York-based pianist Conor Hanick as a champion of contemporary music. At 31, Mr. Hanick, who holds a doctorate from the Juilliard School, has won acclaim for his exciting performances of new and recent music with orchestras and ensembles around the world. On Monday night he brought his enthusiasm for contemporary music to the two-week International Keyboard Institute and Festival, at Mannes College the New School for Music, playing an engrossing and, in his own words, “unorthodox” program.

Still, describing Mr. Hanick as a contemporary-music champion can suggest that he is a specialist rather than a connected young artist with a natural curiosity about new music. Besides, during a typical season Mr. Hanick plays Mozart, Schumann, Debussy and such. The technical refinement, color, crispness and wondrous variety of articulation he brought to the contemporary fare played on this occasion would benefit works by any master.

Mr. Hanick began with “Stems,” by Alex Mincek, the founding artistic director of the Wet Ink Ensemble. The piece unfolds in a series of short, staggered, crunchy chords, though certain notes and sounds linger. Eventually the music erupts with spiraling, skittish figures. Mr. Hanick gave a rhapsodic yet eerily controlled performance.

He then spoke to his audience, offering witty and insightful comments to explain the concept behind his recital. All the pieces, he said, explored different dimensions of resonance in sound, as well as innovative ways to write for the piano. The program was framed by two works representing the “old and new garde of the New York avant-garde,” as Mr. Hanick put it, opening with Mr. Mincek’s recent piece, and ending with Morton Feldman’s “Palais de Mari,” written in 1986, the year before the composer died.

Mr. Hanick gave scintillating accounts of two daunting movements for solo piano from Messiaen’s epic 1974 work for orchestra, “Des Canyons aux Étoiles” (“From the Canyons to the Stars”). These two excerpts take Messiaen’s obsession with bird calls to the level of “aviary insanity,” as Mr. Hanick put it. His playing had the requisite ecstatic fervor, as well as effortless elegance.

The French-born Tristan Murail, who studied with Messiaen, wrote “Cloches d’adieu, et un sourire ...” (“Bells of Farewell, and a Smile ...”) as a memorial work to Messiaen in 1992, and Mr. Hanick conveyed the mix of homage and contemplative reflection in this restlessly dramatic music.

David Fulmer wrote “Whose Fingers Brush the Sky” this year for Mr. Hanick, who here gave the New York premiere. To play this engaging, mysterious work, Mr. Hanick switched to a second piano onstage that sounded like a few of its strings had been prepared, à la John Cage, and required him to lean in his lanky frame and pluck strings.

To end, Mr. Hanick played the 25-minute Feldman work, which he described as a masterpiece from the second half of the 20th century. He said that he was getting a little “perverse pleasure” from playing “Palais de Mari” in a piano festival, since it is almost “an anti-piano piece.” Like most of Feldman’s works, this soft-spoken composition uses minimal, spare gestures and notes: just gentle cluster chords and fragments. In the final section, a recurring rhythmic figure becomes almost like a cradle rocking, Mr. Hanick said.

To appreciate the music, you have to get into a “meditative slash vegetative state,” he said. This was easy to do while listening to his calmly assured and beautiful playing, a performance that displayed a different kind of virtuosity.

Villa-Lobos wrote his “Rudepoêma” — a 20-minute solo work sometimes described as “ ‘The Rite of Spring’ meets the Brazilian jungle” — as a portrait of the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, a friend who had championed his music. Villa-Lobos said he wanted to portray Rubinstein’s “true temperament” in the work.

It’s easy to understand why Rubinstein was taken aback when he saw the unremitting brutality of the score, as the pianist Marc-André Hamelin explained before performing it on Sunday evening at Mannes College the New School for Music. He said he hoped listeners wouldn’t report him to Steinway, referring to the pounding on the keys in the final moments.

Mr. Hamelin offered a typically virtuosic performance of the whirlwind, chaotic work, whose driving rhythms and cluster chords are interspersed with brief moments of pensive respite. After the Villa-Lobos, which concluded his concert at the annual International Keyboard Institute and Festival, Mr. Hamelin played a tranquil morsel by Godowsky: “The Gardens of Buitenzorg,” from the “Java Suite.”

The Keyboard Institute and Festival has become a perennial favorite among piano aficionados, who flock to Mannes to enjoy pianists of international standing, like Mr. Hamelin, as well as a strong lineup of lectures, master classes and concerts by young artists. Because of the college’s impending relocation to Greenwich Village, the festival will not take place next summer, but given its status as a vital event on the New York calendar, you certainly hope it will be reinstated after that.

Mr. Hamelin, who has resuscitated the works of many obscure composers, has just as strong a track record in repertory standards. He opened his program with a beautifully nuanced interpretation of Mozart’s Sonata in D (K. 576), played with a warm, pearly tone and exacting touch that rendered the yearning Adagio particularly gorgeous.

He brought an equally appealing warmth to Schubert’s Sonata in A (D. 664), playing with singing lines and soulful introspection. Also included on the first half of the program was a richly textured performance of the Allegro con strepito in A minor, the sixth piece in Liszt’s “Soirées de Vienne,” a set of nine pieces modeled on works by Schubert.

Mr. Hamelin has also championed the works of Fauré, a composer of elegant, enigmatic piano works that reflect the influence of Liszt, Chopin and Saint-Saëns. Here, he offered gracious, unsentimental interpretations of the Barcarolle No. 3, Impromptu No. 2 and the Nocturne No. 6.

David Dubal maintains that pianistic standards in America are as high as anywhere. Giving his apologies to many other distinguished pianists who, but for time limits, might have been included here, he produced a list of 20 great American pianists, and played brief excerpts of their work. One could write at great length about each of these pianists, and their performances. But lacking the time to do so, I will simply present the list, make a few comments, below, and recommend that people who have not heard these performances make an effort to do so.

Julius Katchen – Dohnanyi: Conclusion of Variations On a Nursery Theme
Earl Wild – Gershwin/Wild: Embraceable You
Claudette Sorel – Raff: The Spinning Girl
Art Tatum – Tatum: Tea For Two
William Kapell – Albeniz: Evocacion
Constance Keene – Chasins: Rush Hour In Hong Kong, MacDowell: To A Wild Rose
Byron Janis – Brahms: Two Waltzes
Sidney Foster – Weber: Perpetual Motion
Cliburn – Tchaikovsky: March (from the Seasons)
Paul Jacobs – Bolcom: The Graceful Ghost
Leon Fleisher – Weber: Trio from the Second Movement of the Fourth Sonata
Arthur Loesser – Field: Nocturne in E Minor
Murray Perahia – Chopin: Winter Wind Etude
Rosalyn Tureck – Bach: Recapitulation of the Theme from the Goldberg Variations
Jerome Rose – Schumann: Davidsbündlertänze, Pieces No. 2, 4 and 8
Leonard Shure – Schubert: Trio from the Third Movement
Seymour Lipkin – Beethoven: Sonata, Op. 10, No. 2, last movement
Eugene Istomin – Mendelssohn: Song Without Words - May Breezes
Raymond Lewenthal – Alkan: Last Movement of the Symphony
Andre Watts – Gershwin: Swanee

Six pianists on this list are still very much alive, and active.

Jerome Rose, of course, is the founder of the IKIF, which should garner him at least a serious footnote in the cultural history of New York, in addition to the product of his artistic endeavors.

Seymour Lipkin continues to be very active as both teacher and performer at an advanced age. The same is true of Leon Fleischer, in my opinion, one of the most distinguished pianists of his generation.

Murray Perahia and Andre Watts are still very much in the prime of their careers.

And Byron Janis is still with us, though I’m not sure if he performs much these days.

As expected, Mr. Dubal paid tribute to his teacher Arthur Loesser, author of the book, Men, Women and Pianists. Mr. Loesser’s performance of the Field Nocturne, albeit on a 19th century piano, was so sensitive and interesting that it led me to rethink my lack of enthusiasm for Field’s music.

Raymond Lewenthal was a virtuoso who had a difficult life, but was absolutely fearless in his choice of tempi for some of the hardest works in the repertoire, such as this Alkan movement.

While I was not astonished that Mr. Dubal included Constance Keene, whom (like at least several other pianists on this list) he knew well, it was a very nice surprise that the performances he played were from a live recital CD on KASP Records, which I produced.

It was also good to see Leonard Shure, who is better remembered as an important teacher than a pianist, included here. There is a resurgence of interest in his performances, led by Dan Gorgoglione, who was present for the lecture.

While Sidney Foster, Claudette Sorel and Julius Katchen may not be well remembered today, others on the list are, such as Earl Wild, who played at the Festival, and was interviewed by David Dubal there. So is Rosalyn Tureck who, as Mr. Dubal pointed out, was a grand lady who was convinced that no one could play Bach like her.

Would any classically oriented person expect Art Tatum to appear on this list? Probably not, but no one would argue that his was not great playing. Including Horowitz, who was very impressed with him.

Indeed, this lecture did much to increase one’s appreciation of the richness of the American contribution to pianism. One could imagine a book on this subject starting with the people on this list. Mr. Dubal: Do you have time for a new project?

A talk on this subject with Jon Samuels and Joseph Patrych at City College was reviewed for the Classical Music Guide (http://www.classicalmusicguide.com) by me in the “Classical Chatterbox” section on October 18th of last year. Sunday’s presentation also included David Dubal, as well as performances by three very fine young pianists, because the event at which they were to perform was rescheduled, or canceled. Although it did seem a bit strange to include them here, as they weren’t even born when Horowitz died, and only one of them performed a work in Horowitz’s repertoire, it was good to hear some live performances, and to be reminded again of the talent that is attracted to the Festival. To begin with them:

Salome Jordania gave a shimmering, pulsing, muscular interpretation of Chasse Neige, the twelfth of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes.

The Chromatic Etude of Debussy purred along ominously in the hands of Ting-I Lee.

Reed Tetzloff gave a fine, intense version of Scriabin’s Vers La Flamme, a work Horowitz played, though, according to Mr Dubal, he was “afraid” of it.

The bulk of the program dealt with talk about Horowitz and his recordings, very familiar to all three of the gentlemen discussing this. Mr. Dubal, of course, knew him very well personally, and visited him every week for over three years. Every time but once, during all those visits, Horowitz played for him. Mr. Samuels, a noted recording engineer and producer, did the monumental job of producing the new huge, SONY box set of Horowitz At Carnegie Hall Recitals (described at greater length in my previous article on the subject). Mr. Patrych is a well-known recording engineer and producer. And like the other two, extremely knowledgeable about historic recordings.

A long list of Horowitz performances at Carnegie Hall made between 1948 and 1966 was provided in the program, but there was only time, amidst the free-wheeling conversation, to hear a fraction of them.

Among other things, we heard that many composers and transcriptions were never again played by Horowitz at Carnegie Hall after his 1953-65 retirement from the stage, and that he is only known to have played the Stars and Stripes transcription 13 times ANYWHERE. Another fact, which I recall from the City College lecture, which gives an idea of what we are missing, is that Horowitz performed the Prokofiev Eighth Sonata at one of his several 1945 concerts at Carnegie Hall, of which no tape seems to exist. And he never recorded it.

David Dubal quoted some of the many pianists whom he interviewed for his book, “Remembering Horowitz,” and he said that Horowitz “cared about the performer at the center of it all,” as opposed to the idea that the performer is only the humble messenger of the score.

It was explained that Mr. Samuels “unedited” some of these performances, meaning that where several performances of the same work were spliced together, he restored unedited, and often thrilling if imperfect performances.

Very impressive, in showing how an old recording can be restored, was a demonstration of how Mr. Samuels dramatically improved the sound of Horowitz playing the Liszt Sonetto del Petrarca, No. 104. In explaining how he was able to do this he said that he had listened enough to the playing of Horowitz to have a sense of what the pianist was trying to do even when the original recording didn’t have the right sound, such as to add more bass when the bass was clearly weak (by Horowitzian standards).

The first two pieces we heard were the last two movements of Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition, and included what some of Horowitz’s detractors called the “graffiti” (lots of extra notes) which he added at the end. One was instantly reminded of the amazing energy, intensity and power for which the pianist was known.

A movement of Prokofiev’s Cinderella, which he never recorded otherwise, was absolutely delicious, and charming.

The 1966 version of Schumann’s Blumenstück was quite different from the 1975 version which was played at the City College lecture, yet equally “free-range” tempo-wise, and with beautiful sound, expressive, and emotionally surprisingly deep. In Horowitz’s hands, said Jon Samuels, this relatively small-scale piece is “a masterpiece.”

Balakirev’s Islamey, in Horowitz’s transcription (including what sounded like his trademark interlocking octaves near the end) was exotic, and presented in all its wildness and complexity.

The one piece which was also played at the earlier City College lecture was the Chopin B Minor Mazurka, a wonder in its huge scope of dynamics and emotion, which impressed me as much as last time.

And yet:

The performance that blew me away more than any other on this occasion, and which Jon Samuels said justified this enormous project on its own, was Horowitz’s playing of Chopin's Grand Polonaise, Op. 22, from a 1950 recital. It had unbelievable energy, charm and imagination, remarkable spaciousness during cadenza-like passages, and yet other runs capable of producing whiplash. The playing of a “panther,” as David Dubal, described him.

Mr. Dubal also said that Horowitz’s sound lives on in his dreams.

On most days of the two-week International Keyboard Institute and Festival, a popular annual venture sponsored by Mannes College the New School for Music, there are two piano recitals each evening. So it was on Wednesday, the third full day of the festival. For the early-evening Prestige series, which mostly presents exceptional younger artists, the award-winning 32-year-old German pianist Alexander Schimpf played a varied program culminating with Beethoven’s mighty “Hammerklavier” Sonata. Later that evening, the Israeli pianist Alon Goldstein, admired for the refinement and imaginativeness of his performances, played a formidable program on the Masters series. The recitals were presented at the intimate concert hall of the Mannes College building on the Upper West Side, which seats just 275.

The institute draws student pianists who participate in workshops and master classes and, naturally, attend almost every recital. But this festival, now in its 16th season, has long attracted lots of concertgoers who love piano music and piano playing. I was not the only person who took in Wednesday night’s doubleheader.

As it happens, this could be the last festival. Mannes’s longtime building has been sold, and the college is relocating, starting in the fall of 2015, to a newly renovated space in Arnhold Hall at the New School in Greenwich Village. Next summer, the institution will be in the process of moving, so the keyboard festival will not take place, and its future is uncertain. This would be a loss to audiences in New York.

The recitals on Wednesday were fascinating. Mr. Schimpf, who won first prize in the prestigious Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2011, began his program with a vibrant, articulate account of Bach’s Toccata in E minor. He followed with the American premiere of “Augenblicke — eine Sammlung,” a 2008 work by the German composer Adrian Sieber. This rhapsodic, restless eight-minute piece veers between outbursts of hurtling, thick, dissonant chords and contrasting passages of somberly reflective, more lyrical music. In a swirling, seductive account of Debussy’s “L’Isle Joyeuse,” Mr. Schimpf conveyed exactly what kind of joy the visitors to the island of the work’s title were indulging in.

Beethoven’s late Sonata No. 29 in B flat (Op. 106), “Hammerklavier,” is the longest, most audacious and difficult of his sonatas. It is always an event to hear it performed, and there was much to admire in Mr. Schimpf’s account. He brought a light touch, bright sound and bracing energy to the monumental first movement. Still, he took a quick tempo that he had trouble controlling, which led to some rushed and jumbled passages. The same problem affected the scherzo. He was at his best, though, in the searching slow movement, played with magisterial elegance and sensitivity. And he reined in the tempo of the daunting final fugue just enough to let the tangle of crazed counterpoint come through and sound, well, excitingly crazy.

Mr. Goldstein, who is enjoying an international career, began his recital with a curiously cool, even careless, at times, performance of Beethoven’s “Tempest” Sonata, though he brought rippling allure to the work’s mesmerizing finale. He seemed a different pianist, though, in the next work, Beethoven’s “Les Adieux” Sonata. Here was a beautifully balanced approach to the score, refined yet impetuous, noble yet spirited.

After intermission, he excelled in two pieces by Liszt, the seldom-heard Paraphrase on Themes From Verdi’s “Aida” and the better-known Concert Paraphrase After Verdi’s “Rigoletto.” Liszt’s fantasies on operas are not just clever showpieces. Here is a great composer reveling in excerpts from two Verdi operas while also exploring the potential lying within the music. Mr. Goldstein played both works with brilliance and imagination, qualities he brought to Ravel’s “Une Barque sur l’Océan” from “Miroirs.”

He also played Three Études (2012) by the Israeli-born composer Avner Dorman, inventive and aptly demanding works. In the first, “Snakes and Ladders,” a rush of passagework in spiraling triplets is punctuated with stabbing, staggered chords. During the performance, the pages of Mr. Goldstein’s score on the piano’s music stand kept turning ahead on their own: The culprit seemed to be an overhead air-conditioner duct. Mr. Goldstein had to start over. When he finished, the audience broke into applause, and he took the occasion to comment on the work’s intriguing title. He said that he could detect lots of snakes in the music but no ladders. He also said that he had asked the composer whether these three pieces were études “for the piano or against the piano,” referring to their difficulty.

His comments were charming and helpful. He should speak more when he next plays in New York. This being perhaps the last Mannes summer festival, that future appearance will probably not be at this valuable event.

Bach: Toccata in E Minor, BWV 914
Sieber: Augenblicke – eine Sammlung (2008) – US Premiere
Debussy: L’isle Joyeuse
Beethoven: Sonata in B-Flat major, Op. 106 (“Hammerklavier”)

Although yesterday was only the fourth day of this year’s International Keyboard Institute and Festival, the recital by the young German pianist, Alexander Schimpf, was already the sixth recital of the always interesting annual concert series. Filling up the second half of July with more than enough programs to keep piano aficionados in New York City happy (as well as master classes and lectures) the Festival includes programs by pianists at all different stages of their careers, usually at least one or two major “headliners,” such as Marc-Andre Hamelin, and many, many artists of quality worth hearing.

Lang Lang may be a sensation all around the world, but I would not miss the annual recitals at the Festival of another Chinese pianist, Yuan Sheng (in my opinion an artist of greater depth), to hear him. Similarly, I look forward to hearing several other pianists whose previous performances at the Festival I admired, including Akiko Ebi and Massimiliano Ferrati.

All of the above is presided over by pianist Jerome Rose, the Founder and Director of the Festival, whose recital opens the series every year, and Festival Director Julie Kedersha.

One notes the passing of time from year to year at the Festival, such as the people who are no longer with us. Two important musicians who were always there in the past, but have left us during the last year, are Harris Goldsmith and German Diez. Harris was one of the most knowledgeable of critics, with whom I always enjoyed discussing, or debating the virtues of whichever pianist was performing. And Mr. Diez was a much beloved pedagogue, who always had the answer when I asked him “What was that last encore?” or “In what key is that piece?”

Alexander Schimpf, who has won numerous prizes and performed a lot both here and in Europe, made a very favorable impression from the beginning of the Bach Toccata, with finely nuanced and well-thought out dynamics. It was anything but dry! Though one could imagine the fugue being played a little slower, for slightly more clarity, one enjoyed the gusto with which he pulled it off.

The work of Adrian Sieber (the English title of which is “Moments – a Collection”) was a study in contrasts, from defiant outbursts to lugubrious hallucinations, though sometimes the one gradually developed into the other. One assumes there are very specific dynamic markings throughout the score. In any case, Mr. Schimpf played it with much seriousness of thought, and intensity.

The beginning of L’isle Joyeuse was fast, impetuous and playful but the following A Major section was appropriately slower, and sensuous. Transitions between sections were logical and effective, and he built up to a huge sound near the end. The audience reacted with great enthusiasm.

The second half of the recital was devoted to Beethoven’s longest, most difficult sonata, and Mr. Schimpf got through it impressively. The first movement was played at an ambitious tempo. With fine control he took us through the tricky passagework, the darting octaves, the gruff and sometimes awkward fugato in the development section and the odd conclusion, where Beethoven builds up tension by getting softer and softer until the final, loud chords.

Mr. Schimpf had just the right feel for the beginning of the second movement, very fast and light, but since one could not always hear the rapidly changing alto voice, one missed a bit of the effect. The long, slow movement was very fine, sensitive and expressive. It is not easy to hold it together convincingly, but he succeeded.

The rather bizarre introduction to the last movement, which, perhaps, gives us an idea of Beethoven improvising, was effectively and dramatically played, and led into an impressive performance of one of the most miserably difficult things the composer ever wrote, the concluding fugue. Mr. Schimpf played it with remarkable clarity, again mastering the tricky leaps, octaves, trills and other obstacles Beethoven constructed for (or perhaps one should say, against) the pianist. The contrasting, slow D Major section was reverently played and, together with all the Sturm und Drang of the rest of the movement, convinced one that this performance was that of a very fine artist.

Jerome Rose presides over the annual piano extravaganza at Mannes College. More formally, this extravaganza is the International Keyboard Institute & Festival, or IKIF. Rose is its founder and director. IKIF takes place in the second half of July. And, every year, Rose gives the opening recital.

This year, he played four sonatas of Beethoven, all of them having nicknames: not “Moonlight,” “Pastoral,” “Tempest,” and “Hammerklavier,” but “Pathétique,” “Waldstein,” “Les Adieux,” and “Appassionata.” All 32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas are special, really, but those with nicknames are thought to be extra-special. This is not entirely without reason.

Rose plays with utter confidence, knowing what he wants to do, and going ahead and doing it. He also plays with due emotion. Recently, a musician friend of mine said to me, “My father says that music ought to be played with feeling. We don’t use the word ‘feeling’ much. We’re a little afraid of it, I think. Or we may look down on it. But my father’s right, you know.” Yes, he is.

Moreover, Rose plays with a big, fat, virile sound. You may not get Mitsuko Uchida-like delicacy from him. But the bigger playing has its compensations. When this pianist’s fingers stumble, he simply plows ahead, heedless, pursuing his musical purpose. Daniel Barenboim has this quality as well. Rose is a big-picture man, and if some of the details fall by the way, so be it.

On the stage at Mannes, he was especially good in Beethoven’s slow movements. The one from the “Pathétique” was blessedly unlagging, a proper Beethoven song. And the one from the “Waldstein” was superbly lush and full. The sonata ended with a charge, provoking a roar from the audience.

IKIF is celebrating its 15th year, a veritable institution here in New York. It is appreciated, and attended, by pianists and piano cognoscenti all over town, and from out of town. There is nothing else like it. Students get taught. Professionals give recitals. And the vast piano repertory is explored. True, Rose played four canonical sonatas. But IKIF typically gives you music from way off the beaten path.

Take the recital by Steven Mayer, who, like Rose, is an American. He began with a piece by Thalberg—Sigismond Thalberg, a piano virtuoso born near Geneva in 1812. This was his Fantasy on Themes from Rossini’s Mosè. Mayer continued with a piece by a famous and great composer: Schumann. But the piece was a relative rarity, Schumann’s Sonata in F-sharp minor, Op. 11.

In my judgment, we would never hear this piece at all if it were not by a great composer. If it were by, say, a Robert Schumacher, rather than Robert Schumann, it would be in the dustbin, and understandably so.

The second half of Mayer’s program was all-American—beginning with Silver Spring, by William Mason, whose dates are 1829 to 1908. This is not an immortal piece (though it is still being played in 2013, isn’t it?). But I’m glad to have heard it. And where else could you, besides IKIF?

Mayer then played two pieces of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the first of them being his Pasquinade, a purely American piece, snappy and delightful. The second piece is much different: The Last Hope, ethereally beautiful. Mayer played it just this way. Incidentally, someone made Gottschalk’s melody into a hymn: “Day by day the manna fell . . .”

Speaking of hymns, Mayer then played the third movement of Ives’s “Concord” Sonata, which incorporates a hymn we know as “Missionary Chant.” Mayer played this music with maturity.

And he ended his printed program with “solos”—treatments, arrangements, versions, improvisations, call them what you will—by Art Tatum, the jazz great. The first of these was one of his most famous: Humoresque. What Tatum did with Dvorak’s ditty, Dvorak would love, I think. Did Mayer play the Tatum pieces with the limpidity and charm of the master himself? That is an unfair question. It’s enough that Mayer pays homage, and pays it well.

He gave the audience an encore: It was, if I understand correctly, a Fats Waller treatment of “Ain’t Nobody’s Business,” otherwise known as “Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do.” The piano repertory is wide and wonderful, and Jerome Rose’s festival reminds a person of that fact.

Some major recitalists seem to arrive at marquee status overnight, their fame achieved — or thrust upon them — in a heated rush. For others, renown comes more slowly, built up through glowing reviews and word of mouth. The French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, who performed at Mannes College the New School for Music on Saturday night, is a fine example of this second way.

Touted as the conductor Georg Solti’s last great discovery after an Orchestra of Paris debut in 1995, Mr. Bavouzet had played New York two years earlier, in a Young Concert Artists recital. By 2005, he could fill the Frick Collection’s intimate concert chamber with cognoscenti. Now his buzz is blossoming into something substantial. He plays in major halls and appears with top-rank orchestras; his Debussy and Haydn recordings for Chandos have reaped impressive awards.

This week, Mr. Bavouzet returns to the Mostly Mozart Festival, where he will play Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto with the festival orchestra on Tuesday and Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, he will present Debussy’s second book of Préludes in the Kaplan Penthouse, for the popular series A Little Night Music.

As a preface to those engagements, Mr. Bavouzet performed Beethoven and Debussy at Mannes, in the final recital of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival. That he had been booked for the finale of a series that appeals to demanding pianophiles seemed significant, and the hall was filled.

Before the concert, Jerome Rose, the festival’s founder and director, announced that Mr. Bavouzet would be playing two instruments: a Yamaha for the Beethoven, a Steinway for the Debussy. With the Sonata in D minor (Op. 31, No. 2, “Tempest”), Mr. Bavouzet offered a Beethoven sharply projected and deftly contrasted, abetted by the Yamaha’s penetrating tone.

He missed a few notes early on, but settled quickly into security for an Adagio first haunted, then affectionate, followed with a frolicsome Allegretto. In the Sonata in C (Op. 53, “Waldstein”), his tempo for the opening Allegro con brio was brisk, yet brilliantly controlled, with thundering climaxes and an affirmative tone. As a gracious Adagio molto segued into an animated Rondo, you were reminded not just of how revolutionary Beethoven once was but how idiosyncratic and personal his music remains.

The darker, warmer tone of the Steinway suited Mr. Bavouzet’s rendition of Debussy’s Préludes, Book 1, in which a painterly range of tones and phrasings evoked illumination and fancy without sacrificing integrity. I can’t recall a more gripping performance of “La Cathédrale Engloutie” (“The Submerged Cathedral”), the high point of an account both exacting and spontaneous. A rousing ovation earned a single encore: a sparkling “Feux d’Artifice” (“Fireworks”), from Debussy’s second book of Préludes.

Of the many concerts presented by the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College the New School for Music each summer, the performances of the pianist Marc-André Hamelin are invariably among the most highly anticipated. Accordingly, this year’s Hamelin recital, on Wednesday, drew an overflow crowd of enthusiasts.

Mr. Hamelin’s career path has been unusual, geared more toward connoisseurs than to big audiences. He took a sort of backdoor to widespread recognition, developing a huge repertory and technique on — or outside — the margins of the canon, tirelessly seeking out big bravura works by Romantic and 20th-century composers who were important to the history of pianism but remain somewhat obscure today.

Perhaps the most elegant and least ostentatious of virtuosos, Mr. Hamelin produces prodigies of sound seemingly without effort or concern. He has found his way into more conventional repertory in recent years, showing in particular a welcome interest in Haydn, but he remains a Romantic at heart.

He opened his program here with Haydn’s Sonata in C minor (Hob. XVI:20), and Haydn came off as a proto-Romantic, with fluid pedaling in lyrical moments and dramatic tension in pauses and changes of direction. Not that Mr. Hamelin imposed himself on Haydn. To the contrary, knowing the power Mr. Hamelin was holding in reserve, you had to be impressed — as in his Haydn recordings — with the extraordinary restraint in this nonlabor of love.

Mr. Hamelin was thoroughly in his element in Scriabin’s Sonata No. 3 in F sharp minor, providing a full range of colors and, even before the Presto con fuoco finale, a blazing intensity.

But it was in Schubert’s Sonata in B flat (D. 960) that Mr. Hamelin showed the fullest mastery, giving an epic cast to the first movement and showing a tender sensibility in the second. You knew from the outset, with Mr. Hamelin stressing the separation of the last note of the opening phrase from the slurred notes before, that this would be a gently activist interpretation and reconsideration, and it brimmed with subtleties throughout — little accents of timing, acute attention to harmonic shifts.

But one harmonic shift was far from subtle: the hushed lurch into C sharp minor at the start of the first-movement development seemed positively epochal, appropriately so in Mr. Hamelin’s grand concept of the movement. Many similarly stunning moments stood out from the subtle ones.

The discerning audience, standing and shouting, all but begged for an encore. None came.

Massimiliano Ferrati, a prize-winning pianist who has performed throughout Europe, the United States and Israel gave a delightful and impressive recital last night.

He does a few unusual things. For instance, he sat down at the beginning to play the Schubert Moments Musicaux, and never got up to bow, or receive applause till the conclusion of the first half of the program. He used the end of the last Schubert work, in A-Flat Major, as a dominant to go straight into the Chopin Nocturne, which is in D-Flat Major. And from there, with only a brief pause, he moved directly into the Second Scherzo of Chopin, in the relative minor key (B-Flat Minor) of the Nocturne. All of which was unorthodox, but harmonically effective. He also makes a lot of faces (presumably expressing suffering, ecstasy, etc.) while performing.

But the playing is wonderful.

One could tell from the way that he threw the opening phrase of the first Schubert piece up in the air that this is a musician whose playing is lyrical, and who understands pacing. Several friends commented on his beautiful tone. High points of the Schubert, for this listener, included the dark color in which he played the G Minor part of the middle section of the first piece, the way he made the third piece sound both quirky and stately, and his heartfelt playing in the last piece, which displayed his masterful control of subtle dynamic shadings.

Mr. Ferrati’s performance of the Chopin Nocturne was impassioned yet sensitive, and he dazzled his audience with the run that all pianists listen for in the middle of that work. The B-Flat Minor Scherzo, in the wrong hands, sometimes becomes sectionalized. Not so with Mr. Ferrati, who kept it continuously afloat with his drive and enthusiasm, luxuriating in the beautiful melody which is first heard on the second page, and flying through the E Major section.

Mr. Ferrati’s playing of Pictures at an Exhibition was powerful and dramatic, yet full of subtleties, owing to his wonderful ear for color (he often tries to control tiny little gradations of sound, and usually gets them), and his aforementioned understanding of pacing. The recurring Promenade always set the tone for the next “exhibit” and there was a huge range of sound, resulting from his fine musical instincts, and pianistic ability. The Old Castle sounded exotic and far-off, Tuilleries was charming, the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks was very fast, light, even funny, and the Catacombs was slow, indeed, and spooky. Baba Yaga was dramatically, though not tonally brutal, and Mr. Ferrati played the octaves, and jumps with ease. The theme of the Great Gate of Kiev was played surprisingly softly the first time, yet led, of course, to the dramatic ending, featuring, as always, Mr. Ferrati’s big, bronze tone.

For an encore Mr. Ferrati played the Rachmaninoff Etude-Tableaux in E-Flat Minor, Op. 33, No. 5. It was highly animated, and Mr. Ferrati wrung every bit of drama from it.

This is a pianist I would happily hear again.

The pianist, author and radio personality David Dubal, a man so turned on by the arts and so turned off by technology that he sometimes remembers his email address as being at G Major, rather than GMail dot com, has been a lecturer at the IKIF since it started. Frequently, the subject of his annual lecture is a composer whose bicentennial is being observed. Thus, he spoke this time about the very contrasting figures of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner. The program included brief excerpts of recordings of their music, and some terrific live performances as well.

We were told by Mr. Dubal that the ever selfish and egotistical Wagner declared himself the greatest poet of the 19th century, and W.H. Auden called Wagner the greatest genius who ever lived. Indeed, his toxic blend of myths, mysticism and exotic (not to mention erotic) harmonies led Wagner to have an enormous influence over the art of his time, and many artists had what Arthur Rubinstein called "Wagneritis."

Verdi, on the other hand, considered Shakespeare the central god of the human race. He loved the land, and he loved art, especially the creative process. He was very active in working for the unification of Italy.

And whereas Wagner derided Verdi, Verdi respected Wagner's gifts. The two men, incidentally, never met.

Mr. Dubal quoted Verdi as saying "No opera can be sensible, because no one sings when he feels sensible!". Mr. Dubal also said that we can understand nations better through the operas they produce.

Mr. Dubal warned us to beware of the failed artist. He said that Hitler gave up painting after he heard Wagner's opera, Rienzi, and that the score of Rienzi was found in the bunker where Hitler committed suicide.

Following a bit of a recording of the Ride of the Valkyries, from Die Walküre of Wagner, we heard Maria Callas sing, with incredible agility and charisma, Sempre Libera, from Verdi's La Traviata, with Giuseppe di Stefano. Later, we heard the unique timbre of the voice of Luciano Pavarotti, in an aria from Aida, and still later, the gorgeous voice of Zinka Milanov, singing Pace, Pace Mio Dio, from La Forza del Destino.

All of the live performances were very fine, indeed.

Joseph Smith played the C Major Album Leaf of Wagner, which was lovely. The piece is very much Wagnerian, if on a smaller scale than we hear in his operas, with virtually continuous ornamentation and restlessness, and an almost endearing (Can one call anything of Wagner's endearing?!) resistance of simplicity. It also reminded me of the beautiful recording of Wagner's Albumblatt Sonata in A-Flat Major by my teacher, Bruce Hungerford. The two pieces have some resemblance to one another, though Mr. Smith later told me he thinks the Sonata is too long.

Aviva Aranovich gave a powerful performance of the Miserere from the Liszt transcription of Verdi's Il Trovatore. Though she pummeled the bass to great dramatic effect, she never produced a harsh sound, and her command of the complicated passagework was always assured.

Jeremy Jordan, a 21 year old student of Mr. Dubal from Chicago, played his own transcription of the Immolation Scene from Götterdämmerung. It was brilliant, ingenious and, one could say, neo-Lisztian, ranging, emotionally and dynamically, from a bleak, end of the world mood to a huge sound, and using every technical device available to the virtuoso.

The final performer was Anna Shelest, playing the Wagner/Liszt Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde. She was sensational! One couldn't imagine this music played any better. It was powerful yet sensitive, passionate, but with gorgeous, ethereal sections filled with that "drugged" calm that is often part of Wagner's music.

What will be the subject(s) of Mr. Dubal's lecture next year? The 100th anniversary of the birth of Irving Fine? The 150th of Richard Strauss? The 300th of CPE Bach and Christoph Willibald Gluck? Mr. Dubal will certainly come up with something. Then, of course, in 2015 it will be time for the Earl Wild Centennial!

David Dubal is a well-known pianist, teacher, author, artist and radio personality. He currently has two weekly radio programs about the piano, and he has probably known, heard and interviewed every pianist of any importance who has come through New York in the last 30 or 40 years. He has won both the Emmy and the Peabody Awards for his writings. On this occasion he sat on stage with his long-time friend, pianist Jerome Rose, talking about his life, and his experiences dealing with so many different pianists. As usual, at the Festival, the audience consisted of numerous pianists, pedagogues, critics and music lovers. The daughters of Artur Rubinstein could be seen sitting down the aisle from the granddaughter of Artur Schnabel.

Mr. Dubal grew up in Cleveland, in an unmusical family. His first teacher was not very good, he said, and he later studied with a lady whose name I did not catch, but who was an interesting personality, and at whose house he found writings of the famous critic, James Huneker. (Mr. Huneker, incidentally died on February 9th, 1921, the date on which the pianist Constance Keene was born.)

Later, Mr. Dubal studied with the pianist Arthur Loesser, who had the most brilliant mind Mr. Dubal says he has ever encountered. In addition to being a wonderful pianist (Mr. Dubal features him quite often on his programs) Loesser had other talents. He was a chemist, and, as a major in the army during World War II, he decoded Japanese messages. Mr. Dubal described him as kind and generous.

The visual arts have also been important to Mr. Dubal all his life, and he said he struggles to get his students at Juilliard to visit museums, and become more widely cultured, though they say they have no time; they must always practice more! But, in fact, art was important to some very important pianists, including Horowitz, who collected art, and Rubinstein, who loved to visit museums when he travelled. This also reminded me of a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I was a teenager with my mother and Ross Parmenter, the long-time Music Editor of the New York Times, and a close family friend, who confirmed my suspicion that, yes, that man studying that statue over there was indeed Mieczyslaw Horszowski.

A visual display of some of Mr. Dubal's many paintings was shown on the screen, accompanied by his playing of music by Schubert, John Field, and a particularly charming performance of a Glazunov waltz. Later in the program we also heard Mr. Dubal's recordings of two works of Dohnanyi, a strong and elegant reading of his Postludium followed by a bravura performance of La Pluie des Perles.

From Cleveland Mr. Dubal came to New York to study with Josef Raieff at the Juilliard School. One of his first teaching jobs was at the School for the Blind on Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, where his boss was a feisty but beloved musician and teacher named Elizabeth Thode, whom I also had the pleasure of knowing.

After that Mr. Dubal got into radio, spending 20 years at WNCN, including during the difficult time the station was temporarily replaced by a rock station, and later at WQXR and other stations, such as WWFM. His reputation was at least partially gained by his wide knowledge, and some of that from his staying late at work, studying scores. This extensive study also explains why, as he said, he loves so much repertoire.

There were some interesting ideas tossed back and forth between Jerome Rose and David Dubal about what great pianists have in common, and what they are seeking. Mr. Dubal: "Great pianists all have ambition, talent, vision and they work hard." Mr. Rose: "Pianists are aiming for a life transcendant, and hoping to create something transcendental."

Illuminating excerpts from Mr. Dubal's interviews with Claudio Arrau and Alfred Brendel were heard. but much of the last segment of this two hour program was devoted to the subject of Vladimir Horowitz, whom Mr. Dubal knew well, and visited weekly for some years. We heard Horowitz, in his inimitable voice (and accent) read a preface to Scarlatti's works, written by the composer, and also express his opinions on playing Scarlatti on the piano. And then Mr. Dubal read an extensive section of his latest book about Horowitz, describing the first time he met the great pianist, in 1979, arriving with two colleagues to tape an interview.

People who do not remember those days may not know what a reputation Horowitz and his wife, Wanda had. When one had an "audience" with them, it seems, one had to appear exactly on time, dress in a certain manner (including a tie and jacket for men) and guests were on tenterhooks about displeasing them in any way, for fear of the consequences. It was quite hilarious to hear Mr. Dubal read the story of this first meeting.

Although he did not wear a tie, Mr. Dubal was not thrown out. But there were other problems that could not be foreseen.

Horowitz didn't want the tape recorder in a place where he could see it, so it had to be hidden away.

Both of the Horowitzes regularly made strange noises with their throats, which Mr. Dubal realized, would all have to be painstakingly edited out of the interview.

At one point they discussed Horowitz's having just learned the Schumann Humoreske. "Not bad for an old man!" bragged the 76 year old Horowitz.

"But Volodya!" said Wanda. "Everyone knows you learned that piece in 1933!"

This exchange would also have to be edited out.

It got worse.

When Mr. Dubal thought he had finally gained the upper hand in controlling the interview Mrs. Horowitz sniffed, and said "Volodya! Did you step in dog doo on your walk today?" After which there was inspection of everyone's shoes!

Near the end of the session, Mr. Dubal expressed the idea that Beethoven was "the greatest single comprehensive artist on the planet" and that the piano is "the most fantastic shrine to the human spirit."

Afterwards, Mr. Dubal, who enjoys promoting his books, and art, moved to the lobby, to autograph books for his fans. But he did so in a relaxed, friendly manner. It occurred to me that he had probably not taken a course in more aggressive, targeted marketing from another pianist he knew and interviewed, Abram Chasins, who, his weak back notwithstanding, was capable of hauling a large crate filled with copies of his latest book into the living room, where his wife was holding a master class.

Tomorrow evening David Dubal will give a lecture entitled Verdi and Wagner: The Operatic Piano. I am sure it will be entertaining, enlightening and provocative, just the way David Dubal likes it.

Jed Distler is an impressive and versatile composer and pianist. Also a highly regarded critic whose articles appear in Gramophone and Classicstoday.com, he is very knowledgeable about historic recordings of pianists, and the connection between composers and pianists is something he's thought about from at least several points of view.

For instance, he spoke of a work for toy piano which he wrote for Margaret Leng Tan, and which she recorded. At a later time he was to perform it himself, and took along her recording to rehearsals, to keep certain things in mind. Then, at one point, he said to himself "Wait a minute! I wrote that!" And he realized he was, of course, not bound by her way of playing it. (He also told a story of Rachmaninoff, in 1939, preparing to record his own D Minor Piano Concerto and asking what tempi Horowitz had used for his recording!)

In a very entertaining and easy-going manner Mr. Distler played excerpts of many recordings, and took some questions. To the question "Does a composer necessarily play his own music the best?" the answer seemed to be: Not necessarily. (This listener would quickly agree, preferring the Horowitz interpretation of one of Medtner's Fairy Tales to that of the composer.)

Naturally, Rachmaninoff, of whom Mr. Distler said "his creative and recreative gifts performed on a high level of equality" had to be part of such a program. He was heard performing his own Etude-Tableaux in E-Flat Major, Op. 33, No. 7, and in the C-Sharp Minor Waltz of Chopin, the latter played with nobility and elegance throughout, displaying a remarkable combination of freedom and discipline.

The longest ago born composer heard on this program was Camille Saint-Saens (born 1835), playing, at the age of 84, the beginning of his Second Piano Concerto with an ease, and technique that would be impressive at any age.

But the oldest recording played was a 1903 reading of Edvard Grieg (born 1843)playing the Minuet movement of his E Minor Piano Sonata. The 110 year old performance had a real feeling of spontaneity, a very free use of rhythm and a grand ending.

Two composers were heard playing parts of Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata, Nicolai Medtner and Frederic Rzewski, the latter of whom inserted an improvisation on an Italian resistance song into the middle of his performance. (Mr. Distler cautioned students that this is NOT a good idea to imitate at auditions!)

The 27 year old Leonard Bernstein was heard in his first recording, as piano soloist and conductor in a very spirited reading of the Ravel G Major Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Three performances not yet mentioned particularly impressed this listener.

We heard the C Minor and then the C Major Three-Part Inventions of Bach played with great clarity, warmth and beauty of sound. Mr. Distler asked the audience to guess which composer was the artist. The correct answer was Lukas Foss.

A wonderful though incomplete recording of Chopin's C-Sharp Minor Nocturne was played, in 1939, by Bela Bartok, whom Charles Rosen described as "a 20th century composer and a 19th century pianist." Achingly slow and expressive at the beginning, with such 19th century habits as hands not always played together, it was all but spell-binding through to the unfortunate moment where it ended, because of lack of space on the disc on which it was made.

One thinks of the Godowsky transcriptions of the Chopin etudes as super-brilliant showpieces, which they are. But the last recording Mr. Distler played was more than that. We heard Robert Helps' performance of the Godowsky Study No. 45, based on one of the Nouvelles Etudes, transposed to E Major. In addition to bringing out fascinating inner voices this work, in the middle, became amazingly spacious and expressive, and, one would even say, deep.

It was a most enjoyable, and educational session.

Mykola Suk is a Ukrainian-born pianist who was the First Prize and Gold Medal winner at the 1971 International Liszt-Bartok Competition in Budapest. He received his doctorate from the Moscow State Conservatory, has since performed on four continents, and now lives in Las Vegas, where he is in charge of keyboard studies at the Music Department of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

His style of playing, in Brahms, at least, seems somewhat freewheeling and spontaneous, though tonally understated much of the time. Understated to the point that I occasionally wondered about the voicing of the treble of the instrument he played. (I had not heard that particular piano at any of the previous concerts this week.) And yet, he could sometimes produce a lovely and robust tone in treble melodies, so perhaps he just chose to emphasize them less than other pianists.

The two Rhapsodies were powerful, with the rhythm of the second played a little straighter than that of the first.

The D Major Variations were played in a reverent manner, yet with dark colors and outbursts where appropriate.

The three Intermezzi of Op. 119 had some lovely, sensitive ideas, though this listener would have preferred less fluctuations in tempo.

Mr. Suk's performance of the Handel Variations was neither the cleanest nor the most powerful presentation of this work though, in this case, his occasional holding back of tempi produced powerful, and dramatically effective results.

For an encore Mr. Suk played the B-Flat Minor Intermezzo, Op. 117, No. 2, which this listener considered the most impressively played piece on the program. Expansive, and with full-bodied tone, it was a lovely way to conclude the concert.

Which model should one use for playing Bach on the piano? Edwin Fischer? Samuel Feinberg? Dinu Lipatti? Glenn Gould? Rosalyn Tureck? How about Yuan Sheng?

Yuan Sheng is a young Chinese and American trained artist whose annual recitals at the Festival I never miss. One of the impressive aspects about him is his versatility. Last year he gave a ravishing program of Debussy and Ravel. In other years he has played excellent recitals dedicated to the music of Chopin. And his program two years ago, consisting of the Bach Goldberg Variations, has to count as one of THE memorable experiences in my many years of attending concerts.

He has technique, he always produces a good tone (and he makes one think that this music was written for the modern piano), he has ideas and he has ears, so that the music always has motion and direction, even when he's playing very slowly. These days he's playing some movements without any pedal, and doing a bit more ornamentation than before. Some people may prefer a bit less of the latter, though I enjoyed it. Perhaps the most striking example of his creative ornamentation was in the return to Menuet I of Partita No. 1, where he changed to a triplet rhythm. Like the fine musician he is, any repeat always included some slight, interesting shift, in dynamics, expression or even phrasing. His daring was made clear in the wicked speed at which he played the concluding Gigue.

Partita No. 3, perhaps less known to some people than Partita No. 1, featured a beautifully played Sarabande (actually that could be said of how he played all the Sarabandes). He notched up the speed in each of the last three movements, from the rollicking Burlesca, through the spirited Scherzo, and finally in the Gigue, which was played with wonderful clarity.

Mr. Sheng held one's attention throughout the C Minor Toccata from the declamatory opening through the countless, though never boring repetitions of the fugue motive (he used an especially lovely sound color when it went into E-Flat Major), to the shocking F Minor chord on the last page, and then to the brilliant ending.

Mr. Sheng fought his way through some slight memory problems in the first movement of the Overture in the French Style, despite which it came off as an invigorating romp. The rest of this work was wonderfully played. Especially notable was the charm of the Gavottes, his presentation of the contrasting Passepieds, the expansiveness of the Sarabande and the last movement, the Echo, in which he would switch back and forth between two different levels of sound, sometimes in mid-melody, but always in a logical manner.

Mr. Sheng's encore was the theme of the Goldberg Variations. Played with seemingly spontaneous pacing (probably achieved by having practiced it a million times), every nuance filled with color and deep expression, it left nothing to be desired.

One must assume that Rosalyn Tureck, with whom Mr. Sheng studied, would be proud.

The pianists Andrew Tyson and Ilya Yakushev don’t look all that different when they sit at their instrument. Both bow their heads a bit toward the keys and keep their hands on the flattish side.

While any physical distinctions between their postures are in minor details — Mr. Yakushev’s hands are perhaps slightly more arched — they have little in common as presences. Calm, boyish and lanky, Mr. Tyson seems to murmur to himself as he plays. Mr. Yakushev, more solid-looking and intense, with close-cropped blond hair and a goatee, smiles, sometimes broadly.

The effects of their respective artistries, too, were quite different at Mannes College the New School for Music on Monday, when they shared the bill on the second evening of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival.

Marking the 15th anniversary of its founding, the two-week festival includes twice-daily recitals in addition to lectures, master classes and a minicompetition. The Prestige Series of concerts, at 6 p.m., features rising artists, and the Masters Series, at 8:30, presents more established pianists.

Comparing Mr. Tyson (who had the earlier slot) and Mr. Yakushev, then, is more or less arbitrary. They were presumably paired on the same day for no reason other than scheduling convenience. But it is only natural to look in tandem at two recitals performed back to back, particularly two that were so different in mood.

Mr. Tyson’s technique is basically secure. But while his playing on Monday in a program of Chopin’s music was carefully considered and flexible, with ample rubato throughout, that well-calibrated moderation sometimes felt like blandness. He often fell somewhere between cool and hot, particularly in a series of five mazurkas and a rendition of the Scherzo No. 4 in E in which the contrasting moods could have been more sharply defined.

The Sonata No. 3 in B minor, which followed the intermission, found him at his best, with the third-movement Largo benefiting from his restraint; he gave a sense of the music’s big tidal phrases, fading and reconstituting. But even in that work, I wanted more of a feeling of relief, of return, at the recapitulation of the theme in the first movement. His modesty — an unusual quality in a concert pianist — extended to his encore, an unassuming Chopin prelude that lasted less than a minute.

No one would confuse Mr. Yakushev for bland. He cultivates a fiery, impetuous persona, beginning pieces before the applause has died down and leaping to his feet before the final note has ended. His tone was authoritatively even in the first movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata, and his control seemed to wane only slightly in the work’s finale, when the beat should underlie even the most furious passages.

He was aided by a Yamaha instrument that sounded mellower than the Steinway used by Mr. Tyson and was able to withstand the crashes of Prokofiev’s First and Second Sonatas without blaring. Mr. Yakushev played with both energy and brash humor, and in Schumann’s “Carnaval” collection, he was febrile, ready to pounce but delicate in the gently fluttering “Reconnaissance.”

It's a wonderful thing when a recital begins with two works played so beautifully that you'll be content if you never hear them done any better. Nikolai Demidenko, a tall, thin gentleman in his fifties with a beard, and a professorial demeanor lives and breathes these works of Medtner with such naturalness that everything seems exactly as it should be. He plays with ease (he never seems to struggle with the instrument), produces a warm and gorgeous tone, and conveys the Russian wistfulness, poignancy and every other emotion inherent in this music.

The Corelli Variations of Rachmaninoff were played a bit slower than one might hear them in other performances. This seemed to be a rather "classical" performance of a great Romantic work, rhythmically rather straight, and having great clarity, yet finding interesting elements on which to focus, such as the play between two voices in one of the earlier variations, a sense of brooding in another, and great swells of sound in a third.

In the Berceuse of Chopin I was reminded of something I had been less consciously aware of in the Medtner. Which is that in successful performances of the music of either, and especially Chopin, there is a poetry to the beat, a uniting of rubato with the basic pulse, so that the beat is neither a chaos nor a prosaic "ein, zwei, drei." The real challenge of the Berceuse is not playing the fast filigree passages, which anyone who is now a pianist can easily do, but in finding a pacing which is natural and convincing. This Mr. Demidenko did wonderfully. That he found other lovely details to emphasize, such as little bells when playing A-Flats and C-Flats on the last page, added to the magical, almost weightless effect.

The Polonaise-Fantasie, which Mr. Demidenko chose to play immediately after the Berceuse, without a pause, received a strong performance with many shadings, and a feeling of spontaneity in the quasi-recitative sections. The B Major middle section received a spacious, stately reading.

The B-Flat Minor Sonata reminded one what a fine Romantic as well as individual pianist Mr. Demidenko is. He is not trying to out-horowitz Horowitz. Which is refreshing. His tempi for the first two movements were a bit slower than that of other pianists, but perfectly convincing for this listener, full of deep feeling, beautiful tone and natural flow. The Funeral March had some interesting effects. Mr. Demidenko chose to lean on fourth beats, perhaps to shove on into the next measure. And in the D-Flat middle section, instead of using lots of pedal, and playing the left hand as an accompaniment to the right, he played the two hands rather as a duet, using hardly any pedal. In the last movement, perhaps the strangest, most abstract piece Chopin ever wrote, Mr. Demidenko stayed within a fairly narrow frame of volume but succeeded in giving shape to something which seems almost formless.

Warmly received by the audience, Mr. Demidenko played two encores. He first gave an absolutely smashing (though with beautiful tone) reading of Medtner's B Minor Fairy Tale, Op. 20, No. 2, and then played a surprisingly perky performance of the Bach/Busoni Wachet Auf.

It's the middle of July, which means it's time for the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, a very welcome feature of summer for lovers of the piano and its repertoire. Featuring two weeks of two recitals almost every day given by wonderful artists at different stages of their careers, masterclasses, lectures and a competition, it is a significant cultural event in the life of New York City.

Many of the people who attend the Festival are people of major accomplishment in music, teachers, performers and critics. So are some of the students who attend the masterclasses. I met one such "student" before this evening's recital, who came here from England. He has already recorded the Chopin Piano Concerti, will soon perform or record all of the Rachmaninoff Concerti and already has an international career playing recitals. This, to me, sounds like the description of a finished artist, as I am sure this young man (whom I have not yet had the pleasure of hearing) already is.

And then there are the fans of the Festival. At the recital this evening I sat next to a gentleman whom I met last year. He came here again from Colorado because he said, he "wouldn't miss" the Festival. He also said he is a big fan of Jerome Rose, the Founder of the Festival, because he so successfully shows what "wild and crazy guys" Beethoven and Schumann were. (Schumann was the featured composer on Mr. Rose's recital last year.)

As an aside, hearing Mr. Rose, a distinguished member of the piano faculty of Mannes College, perform a Beethoven recital at Mannes reminded me how many other members of its faculty have also been important Beethoven pianists. One thinks of Richard Goode, Claude Frank, Bruce Hungerford.....

Mr. Rose, a student of Adolph Baller, Leonard Shure and Rudolf Serkin, has been before the public for over 50 years. He is a strong musical personality, still has remarkable physical strength, and he never takes the easy way out. Though there was some rushing in this program there was a great deal to admire. Mr. Rose knows these difficult works very well, and whether everything was technically perfect or not the shape of phrases was always clear, as was the architecture of each movement. Some highlights:

In the last movement of the Pathetique Sonata one could appreciate the playful as well as the threatening elements, and the beautiful A-Flat chorale theme.

In the first movement of the Waldstein Sonata the drumroll leading to the recapitulation was very exciting, as was the way Mr. Rose "lassooed" the end of the C Minor section of the last movement.

Notable in Les Adieux were the noble, dignified playing of the introduction, in the first movement, the pensive mood of the slow movement and the exuberance at the end of the last movement.

The first movement of the Appassionata successfully conveyed feelings of urgency and even ruthlessness, though as usual, Mr. Rose's tone was never harsh. The slow movement was beautifully played, and was followed by a dramatic transition into the last movement, which piled one climax upon another to the end. It was also noteworthy what a huge sound Mr. Rose produced at the conclusions of the first and last movements.

A gracious and flowing performance of the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata served as an encore, with Mr. Rose thanking the capacity audience for coming, and inviting them to attend the Festival's many other events.

Program

Brahms – Rhapsody in E-Flat Major, Op. 119, No. 4
Schumann – Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6
Schumann – Kreisleriana, Op. 16

The hot place to be this evening was at Jerome Rose’s piano recital at Mannes College, and not only because of the hall’s non-functioning air-conditioning system. Mr. Rose gave a powerful performance of music which no one who’s not a terrific pianist would even think to present.

Mr. Rose’s recital always opens the two week International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College, which he founded. With two recitals almost every day given by pianists at all different stages of their careers, masterclasses, and a competition, the Festival comes along in the second half of July, a traditionally “slow” time in New York for concerts, and fills it with a wide array of delights for those who love the piano, and the classical piano repertoire.

Also featured are special programs in memory of great pianists, and composers for the piano. At least one of these will be devoted this year to Claude Debussy, who was born 150 years ago, and another to Arthur Rubinstein, born 125 years ago. (Indeed, it is hard to believe that the two were only 25 years apart in age, as so many of us still have happy memories of hearing Rubinstein, whose career ended with his retirement in 1976 at age 89, whereas Debussy died in the last year of the First World War.)

Mr. Rose, a student of Adolph Baller, Leonard Shure and Rudolph Serkin, has been before the public for more than 50 years but still plays with great strength and passion. He never takes the easy way out by playing slowly or “carefully.” He gives “full-throttle” performances, yet plays with sensitivity and lyricism, and he never makes an ugly sound. And he certainly understands late German Romanticism.

The Brahms Rhapsody, with which he opened the program, was big and brooding, and even the awkward right hand runs in the middle section were impressively executed.

Of course, if one considers those runs challenging, how much more so is much of the Davidsbündlertänze?! Running at, minimally, half an hour in length, especially with the repeats (all of which I believe Mr. Rose observed) it’s a fantastical riot of extreme contrasts of emotion, and ferociously difficult to play. In addition, Schumann is frequently inconsiderate enough to put one almost impossibly fast and complicated movement right after another (ie. nos. 8 and 9, and nos. 15 and 16). Mr. Rose got through it in fine shape, not neglecting the slower movements, and made the return of the theme from the second piece, near the end, a touching moment.

If the Kreisleriana is, perhaps, a little more pianistically written, it is also a terrifically demanding, yet rewarding work. Mr. Rose tore into the first piece with abandon and rarely came up for air, yet, without neglecting the slower movements. (Actually, even his slow movements are never all that slow.) Some of the highlights of this performance, for this listener, included the beautiful way he floated the melody in the second half of the fourth piece, the firm rhythmic pulse in the C minor section (“Im Tempo”) of the sixth piece, the blistering pace at which he played the fugato section of the seventh piece, and his wonderful bringing out of the syncopated rhythms, and his powerful reading of the middle section of the last piece.

Mr. Rose is to be saluted for his performance this evening, as well as for his contribution to musical life in New York by creating this Festival.

Inside the lobby of Mannes College the New School for Music, dozens of people lined the stairs leading to the school’s intimate concert space, the line stretching all the way back to a far hallway. The occasion (July 26) was another recital by Marc-André Hamelin, whose appearances in recent years have closed the International Keyboard Institute and Festival on high plateaus, drawing a serious, eager crowd for whatever he chooses to play. Inside the hall, one noticed the wisps of charged conversation, pairs of piano students comparing notes, discriminating fans sliding their chairs an inch or two left or right to refine the viewing angle—Hamelin’s recitals are events.

Given his bent for the unusual, the menu this time took few chances. Yet the pianist found good reasons to renew acquaintance with old friends, starting with C.P.E. Bach’s Sonata in E minor, Wq. 59, No. 1, H.28, which loped along like an easygoing hound. After the second movement (little more than a bridge between the outer ones) the Andantino was slower than one might expect, with a delightfully abrupt ending that caused a shimmer of laughter before the applause. For some the highlight was the Janáček, seven of the thirteen pieces from On an Overgrown Path. Chosen from the first book, Hamelin’s set began with the homey “Our evenings” and the gusts of “A windblown leaf,” ending with the peacefulness of “Good night.” One friend thought these were the best of the night, and was struck by the pianist’s honesty in transmitting the composer’s unique cadences.

It could be argued, however, that the greatest transcendence came at the close of the first half, with the first book of Debussy’s Images. The heartbreaking surge-and-retreat of “Reflets dans l’eau” was precise beyond all expectations, and Hamelin’s ability to control and sustain dynamic shadings was at its peak in “Hommage à Rameau.” During the final “Mouvement” I wrote in my notes, “One sits in meditative bliss, entranced, as all that is unimportant fades into the background, the horizon growing ever fainter.”

Even the Brahms Third Sonata that followed seemed to carry the crowd into a different realm. Using a huge sound, Hamelin sculpted a narrative—a craggy landscape—and after the peaks and valleys of the first movement, the second (“Andante espressivo”) came like a flashback, as if telling the story of a swashbuckler’s early life. The third movement had both swagger and twinkle—including a galumphing barroom waltz—perhaps the protagonist’s stormy teens. In the “Intermezzo,” some of the opening returned, before the finale, with its dazzling thickets bringing the journey to its close. Only then, did the quiet, rapt audience begin applauding.

Looking a bit weary, Hamelin nevertheless obliged with two encores, starting with a mellow Rachmaninoff G-Sharp Minor Prelude. But the prize went to Chopin’s “Minute Waltz,” with Hamelin’s own uproarious “wrong-note” refinement. When the familiar main theme returned, after the interlude, it did so with (apparently) each note of the right-hand melody welded to one of its half-step neighbors—whether up or down, I couldn’t quite tell. Hilarity aside, I can’t imagine the difficulties involved in learning the piece with all these new skin grafts, but Hamelin is an unusual—not to mention entertaining—surgeon.

In a recent issue, I referred to the International Keyboard Institute & Festival as a “piano-palooza.” Every July, there are some 25 recitals presented at Mannes College, on W. 85th St. The festival is directed by a distinguished pianist and Mannes teacher, Jerome Rose, and his better half, Julie Kedersha. I have often quoted a saying Rose taught me: “You play who you are.” I reminded him of this saying the other day. He said, “As far as I’m concerned, it gets truer every year.”

Traditionally, he gives the opening recital, as he did this year. This latest recital posed a special challenge: The air conditioning broke down, on a very hot night. That gave the audience a sense of solidarity and adventure, as hardship can.

One benefit of this festival is that a patron has a chance to hear music that is hardly ever played during the regular season. You hear little-known pieces by well-known composers. This year, we had Scriabin’s Sonata No. 5, for example, and Hindemith’s Sonata No. 3. You also hear composers who are themselves little known. This year, we got Levko Revutsky, a Ukrainian who lived from 1889 to 1977, and Héctor Campos-Parsi, a Puerto Rican who lived from 1922 to 1998.

And then there are our old friends transcriptions—arrangements of songs, orchestra pieces, and the like for piano. When I was growing up, these were considered old-fashioned and embarrassing. None of the cool kids played them. But they never went entirely away, because so many of them were so skilled and so enjoyable. This year, one festival pianist played Liszt’s transcription of Chopin’s song “The Maiden’s Wish.” Someone else played Liszt’s transcription of Weber’s Konzertstück. The Konzertstück is old-fashioned enough on its own, believe me. But in the Liszt transcription? Positively transgressive!

Daria Rabotkina, a young Russian-born pianist, began her recital with Schumann’s Humoreske in B-flat Major. This is not a rarity—but you hear it a lot less than you do, say, Schumann’s Carnaval. You hear it about as often as you do Papillons. And the Humoreske is a formidable, mysterious piece. It’s no joke, put it that way. Rabotkina played it in an athletic, extrovert, headlong manner—decidedly Romantic.

She next played a rarity, Busoni’s Variations and Fugue on Chopin’s Prelude in C Minor. This is the same prelude on which Rachmaninoff wrote variations (but no fugue), years later. The Busoni piece is dark and stormy, to quote an opening line. Passionately Romantic, it is a long way from Busoni’s last work, the modernist opera Doktor Faust. Rabotkina played the Variations and Fugue with commitment and command.

She closed her recital with a piece by Marc-André Hamelin, the Canadian pianist—who played his own recital on the same stage about an hour later.

The following night, HaeSun Paik, a native of South Korea, played a recital beginning with bird pieces—pieces by Messiaen, the birdiest composer since Byrd. Paik started with the prelude called “La Colombe” (“The Dove”), then continued with “Le Loriot” (“The Oriole”) from Catalogue of Birds. According to Paik, who gave remarks from the stage before she played a note—often a concert-killer—the catalogue takes about three hours to play. Is this love, on Messiaen’s part, or obsession? They’re often close cousins, love and obsession.

Regardless, it was a pleasure to hear the two bird pieces, which spring from the Impressionism established by Debussy and Ravel. HaeSun Paik played them with care.

The world of the piano, you will agree, is a wonderful one—all that repertoire. Is it the best repertoire there is? You could make an argument for the song repertoire—but fortunately, none of us has to choose.

Daria Rabotkina
Program

Schumann: Humoreske in B-Flat Major, Op. 20
Busoni: Variations and Fugue on Chopin’s Prelude in C Minor, Op. 22
Prokofiev: Ten Pieces from Romeo and Juliet, Op. 75
Hamelin: Etude No. 3 (d’aprés Paganini-Liszt)

Daria Rabotkina is a young Russian pianist who received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Mannes College, and won the 2007 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. Her programming is ambitious and original, and the results are impressive.

The final work on the recital (not counting an encore written by her husband, William McNally, the lovely and wistful Hill Springs Rag) was an etude by Marc-André Hamelin, based on La Campanella. A typically brilliant and complicated Hamelinian tour-de-force, she played it (as she played everything else) with apparent ease. It was somewhat astonishing to discover, afterwards, that she had learned it within a month.

Ms. Rabotkina began the recital with Schumann’s long, strange but wonderful Humoreske. Her warm and noble phrasing in the slow sections, particularly the opening, contrasted with the athleticism and power she brought to the fast parts.

Busoni’s Variations, in which one hears the melody of the theme before the original Chopin version of the piece appears, was fascinating, and included what sounded like both a waltz, and a concluding toccata. Ms. Rabotkina, who likes to speak to the audience about the music, mentioned that Busoni varies the key, rhythm, and I think, other parts of the structure in this difficult work, which, most likely, few people even in this pianophile audience had heard before.

Perhaps most impressive, technically, musically and in every respect, was her performance of the Prokofiev Pieces from Romeo and Juliet. One doesn’t want to stereo-type, ie. assume that a Russian artist should play Russian music well but, nevertheless: Daria Rabotkina is a fantastic Prokofiev pianist! Nothing one could have wished for was missing from this performance. She “acted out” all the parts of this work, showing the work’s lushness and elegance, jagged edges, and youthful ardor. She never missed a coloristic opportunity. And it all sounded effortless.

This listener would be happy to hear her again.

Marc-André Hamelin
Program

C.P.E. Bach: Sonata in E Minor, Wq. 59, No. 1, H. 281
Janacek: Seven Pieces from On An Overgrown Path
Debussy: Images, Book I
Brahms: Sonata No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 5

Marc-André Hamelin occupies a unique place in the world of pianists. Without question he is one of the greatest virtuosos now before the public. Never content to just play the Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Brahms concerti, and solo works of similar difficulty, he has searched out unusual repertoire, plus he has composed some astonishingly complicated and effective pieces. And, in his non-egotistical, non-flashy manner, as a musician who also has much to say when the notes are not flying by, he is something of a hero to the audience at the IKIF.

C.P.E. Bach’s little-known E Minor Sonata caught one’s attention immediately with its volatility in the somewhat disturbing first movement, enhanced, of course, by the terrific evenness of Mr. Hamelin’s passagework. The slow movement seemed rather like an improvisation, whereas the third movement was quirky, with a surprise, sudden ending.

Before playing the Janacek Mr. Hamelin asked the audience if the program listed the names of the individual movements of which it is comprised. (For the record, they are: Our evenings, A windblown leaf, Come with us!, They chattered like swallows, Words fail!, In tears, and Good night.) These are wonderful, warm late Romantic pieces, ever so slightly reminiscent of Bartok, but in Janacek’s unique idiom. I don’t know how literally the composer meant these titles, or if they were just after thoughts to add a coloration to the listener’s thoughts. But one wondered what the meaning of the resolution to the major at the end of They chattered like swallows could signify. There was much turmoil to be heard in Words fail. In tears showed how powerful emotions can be expressed very softly. And one felt that surely there was some conflict, some unresolved business at the end of Good night.

Mr. Hamelin’s performance last year of Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit came across as an artwork in which everything was perfectly in place, and nothing could be improved upon. His playing of the first book of Images this evening made a similar impression. Reflets dans l’eau was sensuous, without having (or needing) the huge dynamic range we heard in the Michelangeli recording at David Dubal’s lecture the other night. Hommage à Rameau was pensive, and Mouvement was terrific, with Mr. Hamelin’s perfect execution of the difficult jumps, plus the great wash of sound and the outbursts that are all part of it.

The Brahms Sonata, which occupied the second half of the program, received a serious (though not solemn) and deeply felt reading. The first two movements were a bit slower than some people may play them, but effective, and thoughtful. There were many examples of Mr. Hamelin’s sensitivity to color, and his ability to do beautiful voicing. Also impressive was his playing of the chorale in the middle of the third movement.

Mr. Hamelin played two encores. The first was a poetic reading of the Rachmaninoff G-Sharp Minor Prelude. After making some amusing comments about people who wonder if the Minute Waltz of Chopin can be played within a minute, he gave us his latest “take” on this work. First he played a lovely “serious” and spacious account of the theme and the middle section. He then returned to the main section, adding the most outrageous and brilliant chromatic counter-melody to the theme. When asked, after the concert, if perhaps George Antheil might be the inspiration for this new version, Mr. Hamelin shrugged, grinned and said “Maybe!?”

Program

Debussy – Suite Bergamasque
Debussy – Estampes
Debussy – L’isle joyeuse
Ravel – Sonatine
Ravel – Le Tombeau de Couperin

On arrival at Mannes College this evening I learned that two upcoming recitals this week are already sold out. This one should have been, too.

I first heard Yuan Sheng about nine years ago, playing an all-Chopin recital. I subsequently heard him play an all- Bach recital, and several programs with mixed repertoire. He returned to Bach at his IKIF recital last year with a performance of the Goldberg Variations which made a profound impression on his audience.

This year, perhaps with the 150th anniversary of the birth of Debussy and the 75th anniversary of the death of Ravel in mind, he turned to French repertoire. And, as usual, his interpretations were convincing and impressive.

Why?

Because, I think, he has the sensitivity and sophistication to get into the sound world of whatever music he’s playing and, without imposing himself in an egotistical way, make his conception of it work. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be played differently. But one doesn’t argue with him. One readily accepts the way he plays the music.

Having heard David Dubal’s program on Debussy a few nights ago, which included voluptuous and overwhelming recorded performances by Gieseking and Michelangeli, I was nevertheless reminded of yet another aspect of music of this genre by Yuan Sheng this evening, namely an almost classical quiet and restraint that can sometimes tug at the heartstrings. One heard this often, as well as the great swirls of sound in other places, ie. the whirlwind in the last movement of the Ravel Sonatine, and the frenzy, and huge sustained sound at the end of the Toccata from Le Tombeau. And everything in between.

Mr. Sheng has a very big dynamic range, and the musicianship to hold one’s attention, either through the senses or the intellect, or both. He will not, for instance, play a phrase with rubato without subtly altering the rubato when it comes around again. Not surprisingly, when he played an encore, Debussy’s The Girl With the Flaxen Hair, it was more interestingly and expressively played than usual. And, with no trouble at all, he went from a quasi-religious Japanese sensibility in Pagodes to a longing, romantic Spanish atmosphere in La soirée dans Grenade.

This is an artist who seems to play everything well, and certainly deserves greater recognition.

Virtuosity of the flashiest kind is the usual currency at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College the New School for Music. But the Russian pianist Alexander Kobrin had different priorities on Tuesday evening, when he played Mozart and Schumann as his contribution to the festival.

It was not as if fireworks were beyond him. You cannot win a major contest like the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, as Mr. Kobrin did in 2005, without knowing how to dazzle. But here he seemed more intent on projecting clarity of texture and line.

That worked best in Mozart’s Sonata in B flat (K. 333), where a light touch and crisp articulation suited the style. That is not to say that Mr. Kobrin mimicked the sound of the fortepiano. He surrendered neither the smoothness nor the dynamic fluidity that the modern piano allows, and he gave his sense of fantasy free rein, using a shapely bass line to suggest drama in the opening Allegro and creating an almost confessional spirit in the central Andante cantabile. The finale, though certainly playful, could have been more so, but Mr. Kobrin clearly had a notion of how he wanted the work’s contrasting sections to be balanced, and he made his point clearly.

Clarity may not be the main quality a listener seeks in Schumann’s “Waldszenen” (Op. 82) and “Carnaval” (Op. 9), the two pieces that shared the rest of the program, but there was something to be gained from taking Mr. Kobrin’s unusual readings on their own terms.

In “Waldszenen” Schumann leads a listener through a forest packed with both commonplace and otherworldly visions, pointing out hunters, flowers, haunted corners and friendly bowers, all captured in richly characterized vignettes. Mr. Kobrin was a fastidious guide. The hunting scenes were suffused with swagger; a sentimental quality lay within sweeter movements like “Herberge” (“Wayside Inn”) and “Abschied” (“Farewell”). And if his account of “Vogel als Prophet” (“The Prophet Bird”) seemed unusually tame, it hinted at this odd creature’s arresting eccentricity.

If Mr. Kobrin seemed more inclined to paint Schumann’s forest in pastel hues than in vivid primary colors, he loosened up considerably in “Carnaval,” the composer’s magnificent parade of characters, real and imaginary. The portraits of Chopin and Paganini, particularly, were beautifully executed, as were the movements devoted to Schumann’s fictional antagonists, Florestan and Eusebius. And Mr. Kobrin was at his best in the spirited “Reconnaissance” and in the broad-boned finale, the “Marche des ‘Davidsbündler’ Contre les Philistins.”

Usually, David Dubal spends one evening each year at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival giving a lecture about a composer whose 200th birth anniversary is being observed. However, this year he devoted the program to the 150th anniversary of the birth of Claude Debussy. And, as usual, his program included music, both live performances and historical recordings.

Mr. Dubal has written numerous books on the piano and its literature, and has hosted radio programs for many years. His current program, The Piano Matters, is heard on many stations in this country, including WWFM (http://www.wwfm.org) in New Jersey and WFMT (http://www.wfmt.org) in Chicago. His lectures, which often include a great deal of humor, as well as comments meant to be taken not more than half seriously, are always based on a lot of reading and knowledge. As well as a great love for the subject.

In this case, he was dealing with a particularly unlovable man (based on his record of treating women!) who, however, happened to be one of the most original of composers, and was, in Mr. Dubal’s opinion, the greatest composer France has ever produced.

Claude Debussy, as Mr. Dubal put it, was someone who gave us a new way of hearing, someone who painted in tone. Debussy himself wrote that music speaks not in form but in “colors and rhythmicized time.” Claudio Arrau described Debussy’s music as being from another planet. Confident and determined already at a young age, Debussy argued with Cesar Franck, one of his professors at the Conservatoire in Paris, when told to add a modulation to one of his exercises. “Why” asked Debussy, “should I modulate when I’m perfectly happy in this key?!”

Debussy, according to Mr. Dubal, loved Chopin and Rameau, but didn’t particularly like Bach (quite unusual for a composer!) and hated Wagner. He did enjoy, and learned from Russian works, and composers. He was also an Anglophile, who loved Shakespeare.

Many pianists played for him, and his music, in a radically new idiom, became popular, perhaps, because it was considered modern but not “ugly.” The composer, Alfredo Casella, said that Debussy’s music seemed to be played with strings but without hammers and keys, resulting in pure poetry.

Many biographical details about the composer were given, from his birth, in 1862, to a poor and unmusical family, to his death in 1918, during World War I. He had cancer from 1909 on, and money problems, which led him to do projects he might not otherwise have done, such as editing all the works of Chopin for Durand. Already ill when the First World War began, he was jealous of Ravel and Satie, who were active in the war effort. Excerpts from the memoirs of the soprano, Mary Garden, were read, in which she described how she rebuffed Debussy’s romantic interest in her, and how she consoled one of the several wives he left.

The recorded performances that were heard included an impressive Feux d’artifice, with Krystian Zimerman, a biting, threatening version of What the West Wind Saw by Cortot, an incredibly sensuous reading of La Puerta del Vino by Gieseking, and a hugely dramatic Reflets dans l’eau by Michelangeli.

Three pianists played during the program.

Joseph Smith, who always seems to have something ready to play by any composer, gave a performance of The Snow Is Dancing, from the Children’s Corner Suite, that was notable for its clarity and delicacy.

The Engulfed Cathedral, as played by Jarred Dunn, was evocative and mystical, and both the buildup, as the cathedral rose out of the sea, and the descent, as it went back into the water, were impressively done.

Aviva Aronovich gave a powerful performance of the fiendishly difficult Etude for Eight Fingers and the Etude for Chromatic Steps. When, at the end of the program, Mr. Dubal said he hesitated to end on a depressing note, having just told the story of Debussy’s daughter’s tragic death, a mere sixteen months after her father’s passing, he called on Ms. Aronovich to come back and play the Etude for Eight Fingers again. A rather surprised Ms. Aronovich returned to the stage and played it again. Again, very well!

For two weeks each year, the International Keyboard Institute and Festival (IKIF) creates a dream fortnight for piano lovers, drawn to wall-to-wall performances in the intimate recital hall at Mannes College The New School for Music. On July 23, the young Dmitri Levkovich sailed through a difficult program that might have flummoxed lesser talents. Originally from the Ukraine and the son of two concert pianists who later emigrated to Israel and Canada, Levkovich studied at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute before arriving at the Cleveland Institute of Music to work with the renowned Sergei Babayan.

As evidenced by his opening, Chopin’s Barcarole, Op. 60 and Sonata No. 2, Mr. Levkovich has no shortage of technique. The final two movements of the sonata were especially effective; the “Marche funèbre” had appropriate gravitas, and the treacherous unisons of the finale were executed with mind and fingers seemingly unfazed by the score’s difficulty.

But perhaps best on the first half was Scriabin’s Ninth Sonata, the “Black Mass,” which began delicately, even tentatively—giving no warning of the grotesque torrents that would come flooding in later. Despite the Ninth’s dense midsection, the pianist gave the inner lines their due. Overall the tempo seemed slightly quicker than usual, yet the pianist was still able to maintain a sulfurous mood. Barely pausing for breath, he tore into Beethoven’s Sonata No. 23 (“Appassionata”), ultimately giving it a monumental cast. The final Allegro ma no troppo - Presto was adroitly phrased, with carefully considered details.

To close the evening, the pianist plunged into Stravinsky’s Trois mouvements de Petrouchka, with the “Danse russe” at a stingingly fast tempo. “Chez Pétrouchka” and “La semaine grasse” were mercifully a tad slower, yet vivacious and packed with color. As a gentler encore, Levkovich offered a thoughtful, beautifully spun-out Rachmaninoff Prelude in G Major, Op. 32, No. 5.

David Dubal Program on Arthur Rubinstein – IKIF

with guests Eva Rubinstein - photographer (daughter of the pianist) and
Jon Samuel – recording producer and historian

This program, which began by David Dubal reading part of a letter I had written him about an amusing comment I heard Rubinstein make on his way into Carnegie Hall, just before his last recital there in 1976, was very successful in bringing alive the spirit of the great pianist for those of us who remember him, and hopefully also, for those who were not yet attending concerts (or were not yet born!) then.

A big part of the discussion was about the remarkable 10 recitals Mr. Rubinstein gave in New York in 1961, when he was 74 years old, in which he never repeated a single work. That was an impressive achievement! And it was remarkably generous of him to donate all the proceeds from those concerts to various charities. Now, several hours of parts of those recitals are being released on CD for the first time. Jon Samuel, of SONY, discussed Rubinstein’s place in pianistic history, and the story of how a fresh look at this material led to a decision to produce these releases, a little more than 50 years later.

From Eva Rubinstein the audience heard many enlightening comments about her father. A very complex and also secretive man, he encouraged her in her artistic pursuits and he also increased her general cultural knowledge, among other things, because whenever the family travelled, they always visited art museums. She spoke of famous people her father knew (ie. Thomas Mann, Picasso, to name a few) and said that his two best friends were the violinist Paul Kochanski, and the composer, Karol Szymanowski, both of whom died young. Her father spoke about eight languages and, interestingly, did not let his practicing “interfere” with his life. He got it done, and out of the way, and then went on to whatever else he had planned for the day. No 10 hours a day of practicing, or exceptional bouts of stage fright for him!

David Dubal led the discussion in many directions, spoke of the famous “Rubinstein vs. Horowitz rivalry,” and told stories he heard from Horowitz. According to Eva Rubinstein, her father felt that Horowitz was the better pianist but that he himself was the better musician. Horowitz, who could be mischievous and provocative, once said to Mr. Dubal “David! Can you get me a copy of the Moscheles biography? Rubinstein STOLE it when he was here!” When asked if that was true, Mrs. Horowitz replied “Of course not!”

But perhaps the biggest surprise of the afternoon was how much Arthur Rubinstein, who was born 125 years ago, and has been dead for almost 30 years, “stole his own show,” through recordings of his playing which we heard, as well as excerpts from a lengthy interview with Martin Bookspan. His conversation, witty and knowledgeable, and familiar to many of us, drew one in, as he discussed music, composers in or out of fashion (like Hummel, then out of fashion), and what people may have thought about him.

One recalls that, in his autobiography he remembered having mixed feelings as a young man, about making recordings, including being concerned how people might be dressed when listening to them (!). In this interview, made many years later, he wondered what “the man in Australia who is shaving” might think of his playing. Which reminded me that so very many people, in so many countries and over several generations were influenced by his playing. Including an Australian teenager, Bruce (then Leonard) Hungerford, who said that a recital of Rubinstein was one of two programs (the other was a Schnabel recital) that pushed him to decide on a career as a concert pianist.

The portions we heard of the 1961 New York recitals, including music of de Falla, and excerpts from Stravinsky’s Petrouchka and the first movement of the Brahms F Minor Sonata, had such unbelievable life and verve (especially for a 74 year old) that they practically jumped out of the speakers at you! (And I can’t help but remember seeing him literally run up the stairs onto the stage of Carnegie Hall as an 82 year old. Yes, one came up stairs to get onto the stage in those days, before the hall was rebuilt.)

At the end we saw a video of the pianist playing the last movement of the Grieg Concerto, conducted by Andre Previn, and made a year or so before he retired. Although he was 88 years old and had serious vision problems by then, he played it beautifully, at quite a decent tempo, and the audience at Mannes College applauded and cheered him at the conclusion.

Since we cannot go to hear him play concerts anymore it was wonderful to, so to speak, bring him and his playing back to life for an afternoon.

Inna Faliks
Program

Beethoven: Fantasy in G Minor, Op. 77
Beethoven: 13 Variations and Fugue, op. 35 “Eroica”
Rodion Shchedrin: Basso Ostinato
Ljova Zhurbin: Sirota, for piano and historical recording
Chopin: Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-Flat Major, Op. 61
Liszt: Harmonies du Soir
Chopin/Liszt: “Maiden’s Wish”
Paganini-Liszt: La Campanella

Inna Faliks is an attractive young woman and a strong pianist who agreed to give this recital on just a few days’ notice, after another pianist suddenly became unavailable. Her recital was not well-attended, but her audience was enthusiastic, and they heard a very fine concert. She certainly comes from an impressive musical background, with teachers who have included Ann Schein, Leon Fleisher, Gilbert Kalish and Boris Petrushansky.

Ms. Faliks began with the rarely heard Op. 77 Fantasy of Beethoven, which some people believe is the closest we may get to having an idea of what the composer’s improvising sounded like. With many short sections, and key and mood changes it is quite a strange work, indeed. And not an easy one to play. Ms. Faliks started with a dramatic flourish and gave a convincing account. She then turned her attention to the Eroica Variations, a wonderful, major work that is also not often heard. And is also treacherous! Ms. Faliks played the fast variations right up to tempo (even when temptation might lead one to slow down and play it safe, ie. Variation 13), the lighter variations had charm, Variation 8 was quite beautiful, and the fugue was focused, clear and impressive.

Shchedrin’s Basso Ostinato was one of the highlights of the program, gymnastic and suggestive with a wide dynamic and expressive range. Ms. Faliks played it to the hilt.

Mr. Zhurbin’s work, Sirota, it turned out, has nothing to do with the pianist Leo Sirota but with Cantor Gershon Sirota of Odessa, where Ms. Faliks was born. Composed for her just last year it ties in with her interest in music with Jewish themes, and Jewish composers. Ms. Faliks explained that Cantor Sirota, who died in Warsaw during World War II, was known as the “Jewish Caruso.” Perhaps there is a story line attached to this work which was not revealed to us beforehand. The piece began with an extended section in which the pianist plays a repeated pattern of D Minor arpeggios in the right hand while playing changing, expressive material in the left hand. Eventually the arpeggios disappear, replaced by more ominous-sounding material and then, all of a sudden, we are hearing a 1911 recording of Cantor Sirota leading a choir in prayers from the Rosh Hashanah service. And then, somewhat surrealistically, the pianist accompanies them. She is making music together with her spiritual and perhaps even her literal forebears from a century ago! Quite a wild idea! Though the effect was exciting, and the material is good, I suspect the timing of starting the recording was a bit off, and, for this listener, the piano was a little bit loud versus the voices, but that was probably not easy to judge from the stage, when playing with speakers that faced out into the audience.

The rest of the program was Romantic music, an obvious strength of this pianist. The Harmonies du Soir was rich and impassioned. The Maiden’s Wish, played a bit faster than one usually hears it, had high spirits. And Ms. Faliks' virtuosity in La Campanella was truly dazzling, reminiscent of great Liszt players like Minoru Nojima.

Ms. Faliks gave one encore, a lovely, poignant performance of the barcarolle, June, from Tchaikovsky’s Seasons.


Akiko Ebi
Program

Bach: Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 903
Schubert: Sonata in A Major, D. 664
Liszt: Funérailles
Chopin: Scherzo No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 31
Chopin: Nocturne in F Major, Op. 15, No. 1
Chopin: Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35

According to the program the Japanese pianist, Akiko Ebi, launched her international career in 1975 as winner of the Gran Prix of the International Marguerite Long Competition in Paris, where Arthur Rubinstein awarded her four special prizes. Martha Argerich has been her mentor, and her teachers have included Aldo Ciccolini, Vlado Perlemuter and Louis Kentner. It did not take long to realize why such important musicians have shown an interest in her, or why her audience responds to her with such warmth.

Ms. Ebi began the Chromatic Fantasy with great big swirls and shapes. It was invigorating! The fugue was wonderfully clear, but also showed her sense of structure, especially near the end where she piled on the intensity, and the volume.

Ms. Ebi’s performance of the Schubert Sonata was delightful, full of charm and lightness. It was almost startling to hear her move into music that is so different from what came right before it, and to do it so well. In the last movement of the Schubert Ms. Ebi had the first of several brief memory problems. However, if her memory wasn’t always perfect, her musical instincts were. And her technique is strong.

After concluding the first half with Funérailles, played with great drama, Ms. Ebi moved on to a very successful second half with music of Chopin. A friend had told me she was a fine Chopin player and he was certainly right! The Second Scherzo, which can sound hackneyed, had tension and atmosphere, and the ringing theme over the continuous arpeggios in the left hand was played so well it was like hearing it for the first time. And, isn’t that what musicians are supposed to do with music, especially well-known music, ie. play it so it comes across as a new, fresh experience?

The F Major Nocturne was wonderful, and just about perfect. The middle section surged with drama, and the ending was exquisite.

It was wonderful to hear a terrific artist like this play the Chopin B-Flat Minor Sonata for this audience. The complete silence between movements as the listeners, mostly pianists, awaited what would come next, was in itself impressive. The first movement had plenty of dash, drive and drama. Ms. Ebi’s phrasing and rubato are so natural and right-sounding that she always convinces. Though I’m told she has fairly small hands she played the difficult second movement effectively and, of course, she made something special of the middle section in G-Flat Major.

The silence before the funeral march was something special. The audience knew she would set a spell here, and she did. Even more impressive was the hushed manner in which she returned to it after the middle section. The concluding movement, perhaps one of the strangest things Chopin ever composed, with continuous, threatening parallel octaves leading to a great crash at the end, was powerful.

Ms. Ebi played two encores, a charming Sonata in F Minor by Scarlatti, and the Nocturne in D-Flat Major by Chopin.

The eminent French-Cypriot pianist Cyprien Katsaris had serious business on his mind when he took the stage on Monday night at Mannes College the New School for Music and signaled to the audience that he wanted to speak. After greeting everyone Mr. Katsaris said that he wanted to “address the pirates” in the audience. He sternly asked concertgoers to switch off “your little recording devices,” adding that he knew full well that some in the audience would not do so. He asked that those determined to record his performance anyway “please consider” that this act is “almost like stealing or raping.”

The audience seemed stunned into silence. A few people applauded. Then Mr. Katsaris began his program, presented on the first full day of the two-week International Keyboard Institute and Festival, which opened on Sunday night with a recital by Jerome Rose, the festival’s founding director.

In principle Mr. Katsaris was on solid ground. The illicit recording of a performance is a violation of an artist’s rights. And smartphones have made this piracy easier than ever. Mr. Katsaris’s large discography includes many live performances, including the complete Mozart piano concertos with the Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie. So it must be especially frustrating for him to see illegal recordings of his performances end up of the Web. Still, chastising your audience is not the best way to begin a recital.

Regardless, Mr. Katsaris, who played at this festival last summer, is an artist who requires some understanding. For all his pianistic skills and musicianly refinement, he can be an idiosyncratic interpreter.

He began with three late works by Schubert, the Allegretto in C minor and the first two of the Drei Klavierstücke, in performances that demonstrated both the alluring and the curious qualities of his artistry. He gave an undulant and searching account of the Allegretto, and brought rhapsodic flair to the restless first Klavierstück. But at times, in drawing expressive nuances from Schubert’s melodic lines or playing dotted-note rhythmic figures, Mr. Katsaris displayed a freedom that verged on casualness.

Turning next to Beethoven’s familiar “Pathétique” Sonata, Mr. Katsaris seemed unsettled at first. In the grave introduction to the first movement he played with somber restraint and deep, rich sound. But throughout the bustling main section little runs and dramatic timings seemed off.

When he finished the movement Mr. Katsaris, who is 61, turned to the audience and said, “Memory is not the best friend of getting old,” and playfully warned, “Watch out for memory, everybody.”

If memory was the problem, he had no similar trouble in the slow movement, played with glowing sound and lyrical poise, or in the final rondo, dispatched with delicacy, clarity and brio.

After intermission he spoke again, this time to read — most elegantly, first in the French original, then in an English translation — the poem by Alphonse de Lamartine that inspired Liszt to write his magnificent “Bénédiction de Dieu Dans la Solitude” (“The Blessing of God in Solitude”). His performance captured the mystical flights and teeming intensity of Liszt’s visionary work.

Mr. Katsaris, who is also a composer, concluded with his own arrangement of Liszt’s popular Piano Concerto No. 2 in A for solo piano. With the orchestral music folded into the piano part, some of the concerto’s combative David-and-Goliath drama is lost. The trade-off is that the concerto comes across as an integrated and colossal piano piece.

Some big climactic passages sounded cluttered and dense, like the episode where, in the original, the piano and orchestra join forces for a triumphant march rendition of the main theme. Still, making this bold arrangement was inspired, and Mr. Katsaris received a deserved ovation.

On most days of the festival there are two recitals. On Monday, as part of the earlier-evening Prestige Series, the fast-rising young German pianist Alexander Schimpf, 30, played an impressive program. He opened with Bach’s French Suite No. 5 in G in an exquisite performance that found a judicious balance between lyrical freedom and articulate, dancelike tempos and touch. He was equally fine in Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Sonata, Scriabin’s Five Preludes (Op. 74) and a beautifully colored, crisp and lively account of Ravel’s “Tombeau de Couperin.”

Mr. Schimpf did not speak to his audience. But during the intermission of Mr. Katsaris’s recital, he chatted amiably with audience members who had heard him earlier. The festival attracts many piano buffs, who eagerly take in two recitals a night.

Program
Schubert – Allegretto in C Minor, D. 915
Schubert – Pieces No. 1 in E-Flat Minor and No. 2 in E-Flat Major, D. 946
Beethoven – Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13, “Pathétique”
Liszt – Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude
Liszt/Katsaris – Concerto No. 2 in A Major for piano solo

Last year Cyprien Katsaris’ recital reminded me of Earl Wild’s ability to balance being an artist as well as an entertainer. This evening I was thinking, instead, of Shura Cherkassky. Cherkassky was probably best known as a wonderful interpreter of Romantic music. But he played everything, from Bach to Stockhausen. And he was a particularly fine Bach player.

The name of Cyprien Katsaris may also be most commonly associated with the music of Liszt, and the other Romantics. But he’s such a magnificent pianist, and such an incredibly musical man, that one is grateful he plays other music, too.

After coming on stage at the beginning of the evening and asking those who intended to make pirate (illegal) recordings of the concert to turn off their machines (“I know you may not do this, but thank you for considering it!”) he gave a very beautiful, almost chaste performance of Schubert’s C Minor Allegretto. And, already, he started to show off some of the unusual things he likes to do. Where Rachmaninoff liked to refer to the (melodic) “pinky soprano” he sometimes emphasized the “alto thumb.” Very effectively.

The first two pieces from the Three Piano Pieces of D. 946 were also impressive. Though he often seems to be impatient (ie. he likes to move quickly from one work to the next), when he finds a color or feeling he likes he lingers there lovingly, and time all but stops. The “Venetian gondola song” effect which he found in the A-Flat section of the first piece was wondrous. As was the return from the fast sections of the second piece to the calm, simple and comforting main theme.

His performance of the Beethoven Sonata was also very satisfying, if a bit unorthodox. He played the first movement at a terrific clip, but, especially as he did not need to slow down for the cross hand sections (which pianists often claim to do for expressive reasons, though they really do it to make things easier!) the effect was bracing. And, who in the audience, before hearing Mr. Katsaris play the slow movement this evening, knew that it contains a middle voice “trumpet call?” Probably no one. But Mr. Katsaris found one!

The last movement was a wonderful romp. At one point he played some phrases a bit louder just because, I think, he felt like it. And it worked. To tell the truth, his Beethoven playing is fresher, and often preferable to that of some Beethoven “specialists.”

Before playing Liszt’s Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude he recited the poem on which it is based in French from memory, and then read an English translation. Aside from easily handling all the challenges of this work Mr. Katsaris indeed conveyed its spiritual nature in sections that were calm, majestic, glittery, brilliant and, at all times, tonally gorgeous.

What can one say about Mr. Katsaris’ transcription of the Liszt A Major Concerto? It was an amazing tour de force, using, it seemed, almost everything in his huge technical arsenal. That, and, at times, a sound big enough to fill in for an entire orchestra, not surprisingly, led to the standing ovation which greeted him at the end.

Still not tired, the energetic Mr. Katsaris (who stood outside the building after the concert for quite some time, speaking with his admirers) played one encore, the lovely, rather Rachmaninoff-like Prelude Op. 33, No. 7 by Bortkiewicz. It was wonderfully played, and a fitting end to a most impressive evening.

You might have expected that this year’s International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College the New School for Music would be virtually a symposium on the work of Franz Liszt. The 200th anniversary of Liszt’s birth is being commemorated this year, after all, and he is the patron saint of the grand Romantic approach to keyboard virtuosity that this festival, now in its 13th season, has always celebrated.

He is by no means ignored: the two-week institute includes two sessions (a lecture and an interview) with the Liszt specialist and biographer Alan Walker; a lecture-recital by David Dubal; and Liszt-heavy programs by Gesa Luecker, Cyprien Katsaris, Mykola Suk and HaeSun Paik. But most of the nearly two dozen concerts include only a work or two by Liszt, and a few are Liszt-free.

One of those, surprisingly, was the opening recital by Jerome Rose, the festival’s founder and director and a Liszt interpreter of considerable repute. His program was all Brahms — the Rhapsodies (Op. 79), the Sonata No. 3 and the Fantasy Pieces (Op. 116). It was not until his only encore that Mr. Rose turned his attention to Liszt, by way of a graceful, sweetly lyrical account of “Consolation No. 3” that was all the more welcome for showing Liszt’s poetic side rather than his penchant for thundering octaves.

That said, Brahms was an interesting choice in this Liszt year because the composers, though contemporaries, were on opposite sides of a stylistic divide, with Brahms often painted as a traditionalist who held out against the innovations of Liszt, Wagner and the New German School.

Heard a century and a half later, and in light of the musical sea changes that have occurred since, the differences between them seem to have shrunk. Mr. Rose, in his muscular, often explosive readings, seemed intent on reconciling them by playing Brahms with a weight and volume more typically lavished on Liszt’s showpieces. Not that the works Mr. Rose chose resisted that approach. Brahms marked the rhapsodies “agitato” and “molto passionato,” and Mr. Rose took him at his word, giving each a big, viscerally powerful account that could sometimes seem overly incendiary for Brahms, yet never so much that the poetic side of his spirit was overwhelmed.

Mr. Rose’s conception of the Third Sonata was also forceful and urgent, but here he allowed greater nuance. The Andante espressivo second movement, for example, had a lovely, singing quality, though the sense of drive that propelled the fast movements was always just beneath the (comparatively) calm surface.

Mr. Rose was at his most varied and flexible in the Fantasy Pieces, in which his assertive renderings of the outgoing capriccios were offset by graceful, richly detailed playing in the more subtle intermezzos.

The pianist Marc-André Hamelin is fearless. No successful performer can afford to show fear from the stage, but with Mr. Hamelin, fearlessness is something more: a positive attribute, a confident calm that he exudes even while unleashing volcanic eruptions of sound and emotion.

Mr. Hamelin came by his assurance rightly, having spent the early decades of his career slaying keyboard dragons of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, many of them obscure as much for the technical difficulty of their piano writing as for their occasional lapses into sheer display. But in recent years Mr. Hamelin has applied his prodigious gifts to more standard repertory — Haydn, Chopin, Albéniz — with exquisite taste and artistry.

His recital at Mannes College the New School for Music on Friday night shaped up as a fitting culmination of the 2011 International Keyboard Institute and Festival on its final weekend. And the overflow crowd, full of piano mavens, gave him a hero’s reception.

Mr. Hamelin opened with Berg’s Opus 1 Sonata, making it sound less a harbinger of modernism than a Romantic effusion mildly tinged with dissonance. Nor could Stockhausen’s Klavierstück IX, cosseted by Mr. Hamelin’s Romantic temperament and fluent command, have riled even the most hidebound listener as it made its way in fits and starts from repeated, fading dissonant low chords to a dissipating flurry of activity at the top of the keyboard.

What did bother some in the audience was music coming from elsewhere in the building during what should have been eloquent decrescendos and silences in this music (as well as immediately before and after the Berg). Not to disparage the normal work of a conservatory, but shouldn’t such a high-profile public presentation be shielded from intrusions?

Mr. Hamelin then turned his attention to two monuments of the piano literature. His control in Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit” was astounding, in sustaining the interlocking watery trills of “Ondine,” in the evenness of the B flat pedal tone anchoring “Le Gibet” and in the manifold difficulties of “Scarbo.”

And if none of that were scary enough, Mr. Hamelin concluded the program with Liszt’s daunting Sonata in B minor, which he recently recorded for Hyperion. He may not have plumbed the quasi-spiritual depths that Claudio Arrau and others have sometimes found in the choralelike episodes, but that’s what the later years of a career are for. The music was all there in its power and grandeur.

Saying that he hesitates to play an encore after the Liszt sonata, Mr. Hamelin played two: Ravel’s “Jeux d’Eau” and a prelude by one of those obscurities, Leonid Sabaneyev.

6 PM Program:
Roman Rabinovich
Bach: English Suite No. 5 in E minor, BWV 810
Ravel: Daphnis and Chloe (arr. Rabinovich)
Brahms: Intermezzi Op. 119, No. 1 and 3
Stravinsky: Petrushka Suite

8:30 PM Program:
Marc-André Hamelin
Berg: Piano Sonata, Op. 1
Stockhausen: Klavierstücke IX
Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit
Liszt: Sonata in B minor


Roman Rabinovich is a young Uzbekistan-born Israeli pianist who studied at the Rubin Academy in Tel Aviv as well as in this country at the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School. He already has a busy international career and is also a gifted painter who has won awards for his artwork.

One noticed several things as soon as he began his program with the Fifth English Suite of Bach. He played with very fine nuancing which, together with terrific fingers, made for wonderful clarity in multi-voice writing. He took rather fast tempi for some of the movements and used a bit more Romantic freedom than usual with the beat (some people might feel, a bit too much), but it was always interesting. He also had some nice creative ideas, such as playing the repeat of the theme in the second Passepied an octave higher.

In 1988, when Mr. Rabinovich was three years old I heard the almost 96 year old Mieczyslaw Horszowski play this English Suite at Town Hall. I wonder what Mr. Rabinovich would think of that performance? Horszowski obviously didn't have the energy (or tempi!) of a young man at that point in his life but there was a wisdom and a dignity and a calm in his playing that were wonderful.

In the first movement of Mr. Rabinovich's impressive arrangement of Daphnis and Chloe I first heard the repose I had occasionally wished for in the Bach. It was wonderful, and one especially couldn't help but notice the exotic beauty of the second movement. The fast movements were exhilarating, especially the fiendishly difficult concluding Danse générale.

Mr. Rabinovich's technique is strong, indeed. One never worries for him. I was reminded of Abram Chasins' comment to the exceptionally reliable Wilhelm Backhaus after the latter gave a recital: "But you never play wrong notes!" Replied Backhaus: "I don't practice the wrong notes!"

After the intermission Mr. Rabinovich played the slow Brahms Intermezzo in B minor and the jaunty C major Intermezzo with affection, and then launched into a blockbuster performance of Petrushka, which was hugely impressive! He caught all the changes of mood wonderfully from sprightly to ironic to coy to forceful. The clarity of voicing referred to before, plus his wonderful rhythmic sense (especially with syncopation) and his terrific imagination all worked to great effect.

Mr. Rabinovich played three encores, the first two by Scarlatti. He gave a lovely perfumed performance of the slow C minor Sonata, and then a lively, bouncy reading of the Sonata in D minor. After which, for a change of pace, he played the Rachmaninoff G Sharp minor Prelude, which was also very good.

A very impressive recital.

Then I spent the rest of the evening listening to one of the great pianists of our time.

Marc-André Hamelin, who will turn 50 this year, has been before the public for quite a few years and is now getting more of the recognition he deserves. He is greatly respected by serious musicians for playing not just the super-virtuoso pieces of the standard repertoire but also a great deal of neglected repertoire, and for his own compositions. He has always been a fine and refined musician but he is sometimes criticized, unfairly, for being brilliant but not warm or "individual" enough.

In fact, the foremost impression one gets today at a Hamelin recital is that one is viewing (with the ears!) a masterpiece, just about every piece of which has been put perfectly into place. Technically, musically and inspirationally nothing is missing. And if anyone can recommend a better live performance of Gaspard than the mind-blowing one we heard this evening I would love to hear it; such a thing seems almost unimaginable!

The Berg Sonata, a wonderfully expressive work "leaning into" the 20th Century was gorgeous.

The Stockhausen piece was familiar to me because Shura Cherkassky used to play it. I don't know if Hamelin plays it better or if I've finally heard it enough to "get it" but I was more impressed with the music this evening than formerly. After the repeated clashing chords at the beginning, which come back several times, there are some amazing sound effects, created by using both pedals, cryptic staccato "Morse Code" type passages, and at the end some intriguing soft but ever so slightly varied tones.

The aforementioned Gaspard, certainly one of the highlights of my musical year, featured an Ondine of unearthly grace, a slow, mesmerizing Le gibet and a Scarbo which was quirky, volcanic and fantastically sensual. Although the audience did not rise at the end of Gaspard it sounded like everyone was yelling "Bravo!" together.

The second half of the program was the Liszt Sonata. It was played brilliantly, with the fugato and octave sections near the end at a terrific speed. But I'll bet that equally impressive to this audience was the beauty with which Mr. Hamelin played the slow sections, leaning on the motive in an unusual manner, making maximum effect of changes of color, and always getting the pacing just right.

A loud, standing ovation greeted Mr. Hamelin at the conclusion of the Liszt Sonata and there followed two encores. The first was a ravishing performance of Ravel's Jeux d'Eau and the second was a short Prelude No. 5 in E major by a friend of Scriabin, whose name I could not hear clearly when Mr. Hamelin announced it. He said it was one of his many findings when looking for little known music. It was a lovely piece with which to conclude a recital most people in this audience felt privileged to hear.

The Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov has had quite a year so far. In May, two months after turning 20, he took first prize in the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv. In June he won the gold medal in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

Not surprisingly, there was a waiting list of people trying to get into Mr. Trifonov’s sold-out recital at Mannes College the New School for Music on Thursday night, part of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival. As advance word suggested, Mr. Trifonov has scintillating technique and a virtuosic flair. He is also a thoughtful artist and, when so moved, he can play with soft-spoken delicacy, not what you associate with competition conquerors.

These qualities came through in his opening work, Scriabin’s Sonata No. 3 in F sharp minor. Unlike the later, mystical Scriabin sonatas, this is a rhapsodic work with Chopinesque beauties. The first movement is like a lurching dance run through with a nonstop lyrical line. Mr. Trifonov balanced voices beautifully and, in a way, orchestrated the layers of sound. He played with pensive delicacy in the slow movement and a touch of bracing wildness in the stormy finale.

In four novelty pieces by Tchaikovsky he showed his fanciful side. What most moved me was his account of Chopin’s Barcarolle. Beneath its surface beauties, this is contrapuntally and harmonically complex music. Mr. Trifonov gave an unusually subdued performance, sometimes intentionally blurring the lilting barcarolle accompaniment figure to create a shimmering mist of sound.

Now and then details were indistinct, and a burst of impetuosity threw off the poise of his overall conception. Still, his deep involvement with the music came through in every phrase. Mr. Trifonov is a boyish young man who enjoys performing. But he becomes absorbed when he plays and is no showman. At the end of the barcarolle he looked spent.

He had reserves of energy, it turned out. Though his performance of Chopin’s Three Mazurkas (Op. 56) had a little too much Russian Romantic rhythmic freedom for my taste, he bent phrases with such tenderness that he won me over.

In Liszt’s brilliant “Mephisto Waltz” No. 1, Mr. Trifonov finally let out his inner demon virtuoso, which was fun to hear. His breathless tempos sometimes caused scrambled moments in his fiery passagework. Who cared? The audience erupted in cheers, and Mr. Trifonov played four encores, all Chopin, including three études.

Now what? His concert calendar for next season is crammed with appearances around the world, including a concert at Carnegie Hall in October with the Mariinski Orchestra, in which he will perform Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with Valery Gergiev conducting. He is quickly gaining attention and is all over YouTube.

Mr. Trifonov’s poetic nature needs more mentoring. Since 2009 he has been studying at the Cleveland Institute of Music. But will his touring life take over? It would reassure me if his repertory list had works by living composers. But it includes a few pieces he has written: an encouraging sign. I wish he had played one.

It seems odd that a pianist as accomplished as Dmitri Alexeev does not perform in New York more often than he does. Now 63, Mr. Alexeev studied at the Moscow Conservatory and won a string of competition prizes in the early 1970s. But he has sidestepped the stereotypes of both Russian pianism (big, brawny and loud) and the international competition style (dazzling but risk averse). His recital on Wednesday as part of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at the Mannes College the New School for Music showed him to be a thoughtful, poetic player willing to go out on a limb, interpretively, usually to superb effect.

In the first half of his program Mr. Alexeev concentrated on Schumann, beginning with “Blumenstück” (Op. 19), the inventive set of miniatures and variations that Schumann composed in 1839 with the idea of depicting aspects of love as a series of flower portraits. That is a lot to ask of a group of juxtaposed short pieces, but Schumann’s lyrical gifts served him well here. Mr. Alexeev capitalized on the sweet, changeable themes, playing with an almost vocal sense of shape and made the serenity of the work’s final passage seem surprising and magical.

“Kreisleriana,” which shared the first half with “Blumenstück,” is a tougher nut: Schumann’s imagination runs wilder here, and the demands that he makes on a pianist are greater, in both breadth of expression and pure technique. The work gave Mr. Alexeev an immediate opportunity to tap into the more tempestuous side of his style, but, more important, it let him play to one of his strengths: the ability to move with deft fluidity between extremes of agitation and elegance. And on the purely technical side a listener had to admire the evenness of Mr. Alexeev’s chord voicings and his supple balancing of the work’s themes and supporting figuration.

These same qualities, and an extra measure of gracefulness, illuminated “The Lark,” Balakirev’s sparkling fantasy on a gently warbling song by Glinka, which opened the second half. Mr. Alexeev’s flexible tempos and dynamics highlighted the mystery and intensity of Scriabin’s Four Preludes (Op. 22), and the decision to play a group of shorter Scriabin works and several Chopin mazurkas without pause proved oddly effective. By starting with a rubato-rich account of Scriabin’s “Quasi Valse” (Op. 47) and including the lyrical “Two Poems” (Op. 69) and Two Études (Op. 42), Mr. Alexeev suggested a connection in spirit, if not in substance, between the composers.

He closed the program with a feisty performance of Chopin’s “Heroic” Polonaise in A flat. The excitement of this animated, rhythmically freewheeling reading was in the way that Mr. Alexeev flirted with allowing the work to spin out of control, without ever losing its structural thread.

Schumann: Blumenstück in D Flat major, Op. 19
Schumann: Kreisleriana, Op. 16
Glinka/Balakirev: The Lark
Scriabin: Four Preludes, Op. 12
Scriabin: Quasi Valse in F major, Op. 47
Scriabin: Two Poemes, Op. 69
Scriabin: Two Etudes, Op. 42
Chopin: Five Mazurkas
Chopin: Poloniase in A Flat major, Op. 53


Although he may not be a well-known artist here, pianist Dmitri Alexeev has performed all over the world and recorded for several major labels. He won awards at the 1969 Marguerite Long Competition in Paris, the 1970 George Enescu Competition in Bucharest, and the 1974 Tchaikovsky Competition before being unanimously awarded first prize at the Leeds Competition in 1975. He is a strong, confident and serious performer who sometimes seems just a bit frustrated when continuing applause keeps him from moving on to the next work.

The Blumenstück is a lovely work which is not heard often. It has some tempo changes marked, and of course one does not expect it to be played metronomically, as it was written by one of the most Romantic of composers. However, there was far too much of stop-go, red light - green light rubato in this performance, for this listener, at least. After awhile one could even predict how the rubato would go, which took away from its expressive impact. Even Horowitz, who played this piece, and was often accused of not being able to play "simply" did not exaggerate the pacing like this.

Mr. Alexeev's Kreisleriana, by contrast, had no rhythmic distortion and was very varied, powerful and effective. Particularly impressive parts of it included the fugato in the second to the last movement, played at a blazing tempo, and the chorale theme which followed, as well as the impassioned D minor section in the last movement.

Mr. Alexeev began the second half of the program with a wonderful performance of the Glinka/Balakirev Lark, which was, in turn, chaste, fluttery and brilliant.

He then turned to several groups of Scriabin works, all of which he played through without a break. There was never a false step here; Mr. Alexeev is a wonderful Scriabin player! He understands this composer's fantastical, quasi-psychedelic language and speaks (plays) it fluently. One appreciated especially the contrasting moods of the Preludes and the two Etudes, the first languid, the second having a restless tension leading eventually to a huge welter of sound.

In the Chopin Mazurkas I came to appreciate somewhat more than in the Blumenstück his approach to rubato. I was reminded of Moritz Rosenthal, not because Mr. Alexeev sounds like him but because Rosenthal never played a note which wasn't "interpreted." Every note and phrase had an intentional idea, an expressive context behind it. Nothing was played without thought. The same could be said, and appreciated, about Mr. Alexeev's interpretation of the Mazurkas. Although one could occasionally feel the use of rubato was again a bit extreme everything was meaningful, and played with beautiful tone, and color. I was actually sometimes convinced, to my own surprise!

Mr. Alexeev concluded the official program with a rousing performance of the Chopin A Flat major Polonaise. The playing was grand, the octave section was fast, and the audience reacted with great enthusiasm.

Four encores followed: a Chopin Mazurka in F minor, the famous Scriabin D Sharp minor Etude, the Rachmaninoff Prelude in G Sharp minor, and the E minor Waltz of Chopin. The Chopin works were delightful, the Rachmaninoff Prelude was very fine, and the Scriabin was fantastic!

Mozart: Fantasy in D minor, K. 397
Schumann: Fantasy in C major, Op. 17
Liszt: Six Grand Paganini Etudes, S. 141


Last year Haesun Paik played a sensational recital, including the Schumann Humoresque and the Scriabin Fifth Sonata, at the Festival. This evening's program, though certainly well-played, lacked some of the energy and visceral excitement of last year's concert.

Ms. Paik is a true Romantic pianist, and one hears that in everything she plays. The Mozart Fantasy which began the program, was soulful and beautiful, though some people might prefer a bit less tempo fluctuation.

The Schumann Fantasy is a natural for someone with Ms. Paik's musical inclinations. The first movement was very fine. The second movement, with the fearsome coda, was more thoughtful than physical and she focused on bringing out interesting details, such as the dotted rhythms, before throwing herself into the last section. After which, though it's not the end of the work, her enthusiastic audience applauded her heartily.

The third movement had some wonderful moments, including the swirling arpeggiated modulations near the end, and some soft passages. She is often at her most expressive at the low end of the dynamic range.

Ms. Paik played the Liszt/Paganini Etudes with more strength, and they were all effective. Il Tremolo was large-scaled and dramatic. If her playing of the E Flat major Etude may not put the ancient Horowitz recording out of business it had the appropriate combination of fleetness, charm and bombast. La Campanella sizzled, and the two E major Etudes were delightful. The concluding A minor Theme and Variations were powerful, and again produced great enthusiasm, and a standing ovation from many of her fans.

Ms. Paik concluded with one encore, the popular Liszt arrangement of the Schumann song, Widmung.

Exploring 'the greatest life ever lived'

At least three times during of his July 18 International Keyboard Institute & Festival programme, writer and radio personality David Dubal said that Franz Liszt experienced the greatest life ever lived. I guess that’s true.

Imagine being in Liszt’s shoes, or, better still, having his hands, inhabiting his mind. Imagine taking the relatively new pianoforte to new levels of virtuosity and expression. Imagine being a sex symbol, superstar, groomer of young talent, inventor of the recital, masterclass, tone poem, and transcendental etude. Imagine having a harmonic sense that foams at the mouth and sends smoke out of your ears. And then dropping out of the concert arena to concentrate on composing, from the celebrated B Minor Sonata and undervalued Hungarian Rhapsodies to those bizarre late pieces. If anyone can “sell” Liszt, Dubal can. Dubal not only discussed Liszt’s multi-faceted musical world, but also drew attention to Liszt’s generosity of spirit and cultural curiosity. He was almost as prodigious a writer of letters as he was an indefatigable transcriber of orchestral works for the piano, and a seasoned art connoisseur.

Dubal interspersed his comments with recorded examples. These included Horowitz’s galvanizing 1920 E-flat Paganini Etude and a live 1951 excerpt from the Sixth Rhapsody, where the octaves slowly gain momentum before engulfing Carnegie Hall in a tidal wave of sound. I must admit that I didn’t care for Simon Barere’s astonishingly accurate Gnomenreigen and La Leggierezza, which are quick on the draw but slow on the musicality. But at least Dubal played Benno Moiseiwitsch’s La Leggierezza too, which stands among the five greatest piano recordings ever made. An indefatigable promoter and nurturer of young keyboard talent, Dubal shared the platform to showcase three pianists (Wael Farouk, Benjamin Laude and Xu Han) in short Liszt selections.

Cyprien Katsaris’ July 20 programme found the brilliant, idiosyncratic pianist in a more settled mood than when he played in New York two months ago. He gave over most of the first half to a continuous mix culled from Liszt’s late pieces, played with three-dimensional dynamic scaling and focused intensity. While Katsaris’ fluent mastery cannot convince me that Liszt’s deadly dull Chaconne from Handel’s Almira is worth any pianist’s effort, it was wonderful to hear the Wagner/Liszt Liebestod taken as a brisk, long lined stroll rather than a brooding crawl, plus a glittering Fifth Rhapsody. If Chico Marx had the chops and the musicianship to play Haydn’s C Major Sonata No 35, that’s exactly what we heard from Katsaris. If his Chopin A Major Polonaise oozed vulgarity in the form of brash octave doublings, inverted dynamics, freakish inner voices, and mauled rhythms, at least afterwards Katsaris warned young pianists in the house NOT to play the Polonaise as he just did! Immediately following his deliciously slapdash rewrite of Gottschalk’s The Banjo, Kastaris offered an improvisation which turned out to be high-octane cocktail pianist renditions of classical music’s greatest hits. It was as if the Liberace Museum had never closed.

WHEN Marc-André Hamelin gave a piano recital at Le Poisson Rouge in September, he displayed all the hallmarks of a first-rate artist: a stellar technique, poise and probing musicianship. He did so in a program consisting entirely of his own compositions, a rare feat in an era when the composer-pianist is an increasingly endangered species.

Mr. Hamelin, who turns 50 in September, has recorded his own works alongside a vast collection of little-known repertory, making a name for himself with terrific releases of worthy obscurities on the Hyperion label. More recently he has also recorded excellent discs of work by mainstream composers like Haydn, Schumann, Chopin and Liszt.

On Friday evening at Mannes College the New School for Music, as part of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, Mr. Hamelin will perform a program of 19th- and 20th-century music: Berg’s Piano Sonata (Op. 1), Stockhausen’s Klavierstück IX, Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit” and Liszt’s Sonata in B minor.

Mr. Hamelin’s imaginative and soulful recording of the Liszt sonata is one of his latest releases on Hyperion. Among his many other notable recordings are several of music by Charles-Valentin Alkan, a 19th-century French virtuoso pianist and a friend of Chopin’s.

Mr. Hamelin finds the word “virtuoso,” which is invariably applied to his playing, a somewhat derogatory descriptive that implies mere showmanship, he said during a recent interview in a practice room at Mannes. But he wields his jaw-dropping technique, impressive even alongside the technical wizardry of many contemporary pianists, entirely in the service of insightful, passionate music making. There is nothing remotely flamboyant about his playing or his stage presence; he moves his upper body little. But the agility with which his hands fly over the keys is dazzling.

A virtuoso technique is imperative to make any sense of the thickets of notes in Alkan’s works. As David Dubal, the piano scholar and Juilliard professor, said in a telephone interview, virtuoso “is a term that has not since Paganini and Liszt found a resting place.”

“It’s a very wonderful thing to be a virtuoso,” Mr. Dubal added. “You can’t play the Godowsky études without being one.

“Mr. Hamelin has a marvelous stature in the world of piano in that he has brought back and explored many wonderful things that can give the piano a future. He is not afraid of anything. We’re talking about one of the only pianists with a more comprehensive outlook on the repertory, which can inspire young people to play beyond the restricted repertory that exists. That’s where his importance lies.”

Mr. Hamelin’s fascination with Alkan and other composers off the beaten track (he has recorded works by Nikolai Kapustin, Leo Ornstein, Nikolai Roslavets, Georgy Catoire and Xaver Scharwenka) began as a child in Montreal, where he grew up speaking French. His father, Gilles Hamelin, a pharmacist and an accomplished amateur pianist who died in 1995, was an avid collector of scores and recordings. He encouraged his son’s natural curiosity about a wide range of music. Mr. Hamelin’s mother, Jacqueline Hamelin, doesn’t play an instrument, he said, but is “a very keen listener.”

Mr. Hamelin enjoys unearthing rare scores in secondhand shops. But the demise of brick-and-mortar outlets has meant fewer opportunities to discover gems.

Some works, like Dukas’s mammoth Piano Sonata, Mr. Hamelin said, fell into obscurity because they were never promoted by a big-name exponent. Mr. Hamelin grew up listening to recordings by golden-age pianists, many of whom — like pianists in the 19th century — played their own arrangements and compositions.

Mr. Hamelin’s 12 Études, in all the minor keys, which he performed at Le Poisson Rouge in September (and which have been published by Edition Peters), were inspired mostly by 19th-century composers and writers. The poetic Étude No. 7 in E flat minor (“After Tchaikovsky,” for the left hand alone), for example, is modeled on Tchaikovsky’s “Lullaby” (Op. 16, No. 1). The Étude No. 3 in B minor (“After Paganini-Liszt”) takes its inspiration from “La Campanella,” and the Étude No. 8 in B flat minor (“Erlkönig, After Goethe”) mirrors Goethe’s famous poem.

Composing, transcribing and arranging are now mostly lost arts for pianists, Mr. Dubal said, praising Mr. Hamelin’s eclectic interests and talents. Composition, Mr. Dubal added, should be encouraged in conservatories to facilitate broader and more creative artistry, rather than the “robots culture, a mechanical culture” that exists today.

“Just because you can play the octaves of the Tchaikovsky Concerto,” Mr. Dubal said, “you can’t expect to be called an artist or a musician. I’m adamant about that. I teach many pianists at Juilliard, and it doesn’t mean they will ever be artists or even musicians.” To be a complete musician like Mr. Hamelin, “you have to learn how to compose, how to transcribe, how to arrange music,” he added. “It’s all part of a great tradition.”

That tradition has faded because of changes in conservatory training leading toward a system that encourages rote study and memorization of large segments of the mainstream pianistic repertory. “It’s much more important than many students realize to have a thorough grounding in harmony, counterpoint, theory and ear training,” said Mr. Hamelin, who studied at the École de Musique Vincent-d’Indy in Montreal and received undergraduate and graduate degrees in piano performance from Temple University in Philadelphia. “Without that you will be a very incomplete musician.”

Mr. Hamelin, who writes music by hand and never uses any of the popular computer tools, called composing “essential for many reasons.”

“It helps you not to take the composers you play for granted,” he said, “and it allows you to experience fully at first hand what they went through at the moment of creating the piece you are playing. It also helps you understand the system of notation. I’d be a very different performer if I didn’t compose.”

Mr. Hamelin’s ability to dissect a piece aurally is evident when he highlights multiple voices in even the densest of scores. His playing is notable for its clarity of texture and for its momentum, particularly in vast sonatas that can sound meandering in less capable hands.

Because of this focus on clarity, his interpretations have been called cold.

“Every concert I do is like a love offering,’ he said, “and I just want to give everything I have. But some people confuse clarity with coldness. Admittedly I’m not much to watch at the piano, which bothers some people.”

Mr. Hamelin, an affable, unassuming man with an explosive laugh, is going through a divorce. He lives in Boston with his fiancée, the pianist and WBGH radio host Cathy Fuller, to whom he dedicated his Theme and Variations. Mr. Hamelin doesn’t own a piano and practices on Ms. Fuller’s Steinway.

His actual time at the instrument varies.

“I practice 24 hours,” he said. “I’m not kidding,” he added with a laugh. “It’s not the time but what you achieve. There is also the factor that if you spend all of your days in the practice room, what are you hoping to express musically and emotionally, if all you see is four walls? You have to live and gather experience and go through the good and the bad.”

“You have to concentrate your work as much as possible,” he added, “and practice as little mechanically as possible.”

Simon Perry, the director of Hyperion Records, said he enjoys working with Mr. Hamelin “because he is just a straightforward guy with no airs and graces who is really fun to be around.”

“He is astonishing in the studio,” Mr. Perry added. “There are works he has recorded for us where you could imagine the strain and stress, but he seems to find it easy.”

Young performers who immediately want to record staples of the repertory, Mr. Perry said, “are asking for trouble, given that everything has been recorded umpteen times by the greatest performers in 50 years.”

Mr. Hamelin, even given his age, experience and prodigious gifts, is still waiting to record staples like the late Beethoven sonatas. “The presence of so many wonderful recordings,” he said, “makes me want to wait until I’m capable of realizing exactly what I want.”

In the meantime he has plenty to focus on, including two concerts at the BBC Proms in London this summer: a late-night Liszt recital on Aug. 24 and a performance of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales on Sept. 3. In October he will perform Szymanowski’s Symphony No. 4 for piano and orchestra (“Symphonie Concertante”) with the Berlin Philharmonic.

This is all music for virtuosos. “I play things that are outwardly flashy,” Mr. Hamelin said. “But if there were no music in it, I wouldn’t bother with it. If people only see the artifice, I feel that I’ve failed.”

In January, during my Top 10 Composers project, a two-week series of deliberative articles, blog posts and videos to come up with a list of the greatest composers in history, Liszt was never really a contender. Among comments from readers, there were surprisingly few calls to include him in this select group.

But if this exercise, an intellectual game played seriously, had involved coming up with the Top 10 musicians in history — those creative artists whose overall contributions had enormous influence on the art form — Liszt would easily have made the list. In fact, Liszt, born 200 years ago this Oct. 22, might have been my choice for the top spot.

One person who would agree is the musicologist Alan Walker. In his monumental three-volume Liszt biography and in two supplemental books, Mr. Walker makes a case for Liszt, who died in 1886, as the towering musical figure of the 19th century. Last month, during the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College the New School for Music, Mr. Walker gave a lecture, “Liszt at the Keyboard,” focusing on that master’s contributions to the piano. But he began by describing the stunning breadth of Liszt’s accomplishments, which unfolded, he said, “simultaneously in six directions.”

First and foremost, Liszt was a colossal pianist, the most awesome virtuoso of his era, who in his playing and his compositions for piano pushed the boundaries of technique, texture and sound. As a composer, beyond his works for piano, Liszt was the inventor of the orchestral tone poem and an inspired songwriter, and he produced a body of sublime sacred choral works. As a conductor, he introduced seminal scores, including Wagner’s “Lohengrin,” in Weimar.

Liszt was the most consequential piano teacher of his time. He taught some 400 students over 40 years, in line with his notion of “génie oblige,” the obligation of genius, and never accepted payment for the lessons, much to the chagrin of rival pedagogues. Liszt was also, Mr. Walker emphasized, a festival organizer and an important writer of essays, program notes and criticism.

In this bicentennial year there has been a bounty of Liszt recordings. Culling items from the Universal Classics catalog, Deutsche Grammophon released a limited-edition, 34-CD boxed set, “Liszt: The Collection,” a comprehensive offering of Liszt’s music, including organ pieces, songs and sacred vocal works. There have been Liszt solo piano recordings by Marc-André Hamelin, Nelson Freire, Garrick Ohlsson and others, with more to come.

In his lecture Mr. Walker emphasized two facets of Liszt the pianist that are more relevant than ever. Liszt was a champion of knotty works that mystified the public: not only music by contemporaries but also older scores, like the late Beethoven and Schubert piano sonatas. Take Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata, a piece that during Liszt’s years as a touring virtuoso was widely considered an incoherent, unplayable creation of an old, deaf and eccentric composer. Liszt showed that here was an exhilarating Beethoven masterpiece.

After hearing Liszt perform the sonata in 1836, Berlioz wrote of Liszt’s impressive fidelity to the text in a review quoted in the first volume of Mr. Walker’s biography. If the “Hammerklavier” presented the “riddle of the Sphinx,” as Berlioz wrote, then Liszt had solved it, and “in such a way that had the composer himself returned from the grave, a paroxysm of joy and pride would have swept over him.” In making comprehensible a work not yet comprehended, Berlioz added, Liszt proved that “he is the pianist of the future.”

In addition, Mr. Walker said, Liszt essentially invented the idea of the piano recital, purposefully borrowing a literary term to indicate that a piano program should be not just a collection of interesting pieces but also a musical essay with a theme or narrative.

This is exactly what the brilliant pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard accomplishes in his two-disc album “The Liszt Project,” which will be released by Deutsche Grammophon in September. Mr. Aimard brings his consummate skills and musical insights to performances of Liszt’s formidable Piano Sonata and lesser-known later works. These Liszt pieces are juxtaposed with works by Berg, Wagner, Scriabin, Bartok, Messiaen, Ravel and the Italian composer Marco Stroppa.

As a composer, Liszt was often an iconoclastic adventurer, especially in works with fluid, diaphanous textures and sounds that anticipated Impressionism. In many of his late pieces he explores radical chromatic harmony and dissonance, sometimes cutting loose almost completely from tonal moorings. In one telling sequence in “The Liszt Project,” Mr. Aimard segues from Liszt’s short, spare-textured experimental “Nuages Gris,” composed in 1881, to Berg’s early Piano Sonata (Op. 1), written some 27 years later, and it seems but a short leap from late Liszt to Berg’s intense, one-movement work, nominally in a minor key but sounding almost atonal. Mr. Aimard’s point in this album is not just to show Liszt anticipating 20th-century modernism but also to place him amid giants like Berg, Bartok and Messiaen.

But if Liszt never lacked champions among master pianists, why is he not considered as important as other Romantic composers, like Schumann and Chopin?

The problem may be that “greatness” thing, which was, admittedly, the nebulous criterion for my Top 10 Composers project. Liszt’s music can be audacious, visionary, mystical, thrilling. If it does not seem “great,” perhaps this is because he was not striving to compose masterpieces in the manner of a Beethoven. He was too concerned with the immediate and experimental.

Also, even Liszt lovers must admit that he wrote lots of shamelessly flashy piano pieces. It may not help his reputation as a master composer that Lang Lang has a new album on Sony Classical called “Liszt: My Piano Hero,” featuring a cover image of himself in a digitized, flame orange swirling cape. It looks like something out of “Priscilla Queen of the Desert.”

In discussing Liszt’s devotion to the piano, Mr. Walker quoted an open letter the 26-year-old Liszt had written to musicians who had criticized him in advance of a world tour, arguing that Liszt should instead devote himself to becoming a proper composer of symphonic works and more. In his letter, really a manifesto, Liszt placed the piano at the “top of the hierarchy of instruments.” The piano could evoke “the entire scope of the orchestra,” Liszt wrote, the “harmony of 100 players.”

This letter sheds light on Liszt’s passion for transcribing songs, symphonic music and excerpts from operas into all manner of piano fantasies and paraphrases. The best of these works are much more than virtuosic stunts. Liszt’s piano transcriptions of the nine Beethoven symphonies are works of genius. Vladimir Horowitz, in a 1988 interview, told me that he deeply regretted never having played Liszt’s arrangements of the Beethoven symphonies in public.

“These are the greatest works for the piano, tremendous works,” he said. “But they are ‘sound’ works,” by which he meant pieces that explore the piano’s coloristic possibilities. “For me,” Horowitz elaborated, “the piano is the orchestra. I don’t like the sound of the piano as a piano. I like to imitate the orchestra — the oboe, the clarinet, the violin and, of course, the singing voice. Every note of the symphonies is in the Liszt works.”

In this Liszt year we are still coming to terms with his achievement. Top 10 composer? Maybe not. But what a monumental musician! And what a character: a combination of showman and genius, superstar and, later in life, devout cleric. He covered all the bases.

Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988


This evening, at Yuan Sheng's recital, a respected colleague told me how lucky he still feels that the very first time he heard the Hammerklavier Sonata in concert the pianist playing it was Rudolf Serkin. Which made me think about when I had heard the Goldberg Variations performed before. I'd heard recordings of the work. I have read through all or most of it, and none of it sounded unfamiliar. But when did I actually hear it played before in concert? To my embarrassment I realized: Probably never!

So this was it! My first time!

It was an extraordinary experience, thanks to a composer whose greatness is beyond words, and a fabulously talented artist.

The amazing content of the music aside, I could not think of any work in the standard repertoire (before the 20th Century, at least) where a pianist sits and plays continuously for 77 minutes, the length of the Goldberg Variations when played with all the repeats, as we heard it this evening. Does the performer (especially when playing from memory, as Mr. Sheng did) feel after an hour the "wall" a marathon runner may hit around mile 20?

Besides sheer stamina there are at least a few other elements necessary to bring off this music successfully.

The most obvious one is technique. That one will get you quite far, this music being so complicated much of the time, but it won't give you depth or subtlety.

Another element is understanding the ornamentation of Bach's time. But that's not the whole story, either. I cannot forget the long-ago experience of a lecture given by a man who considered himself a Bach expert. He spoke about the ornamentation at length but then played the music with a sound quite lacking in the appropriate nobility and character.

One can sometimes feel that almost nothing new, harmonically or rhythmically, has come along since Bach. This is an exaggeration, but not such a very big one, considering how sophisticated and difficult the music is. So one also needs imagination.

Then, too the modern piano did not exist when Bach wrote this work. But, as I've noted at previous concerts he's given, Yuan Sheng makes one feel that this music was written for this instrument. The Chinese and American-trained master has all the other qualities needed to succeed with Bach's music, too.

He understands pacing, both within and between the Variations. He always does repeats with a different sound or dynamic, or by slight alteration of the ornaments. He has a wide tonal palette (yes, Bach on the piano should be in COLOR, not just black and white!) and he has both the intellect and imagination to keep this huge work alive and afloat for over an hour and a quarter. It should almost go without saying that he has a big technique, capable of creating moments of excitement and brilliance, but the technique is always there to serve the music, never to show off. The MUSIC does that!

This recital was truly inspiring.

Discoveries at the IKIF

Hot piano playing and cool air conditioning have made the International Keyboard Institute & Festival (IKIF) an enticing proposition during these New York summer dog days. Piano mavens, professionals and students must feel the same way, since I see some of the same faces on successive nights, and have taken the opportunity to make new friends and reconnect with old ones.

For example, I caught up with Steven Mayer, whom I had not seen in quite some time. We first met 25 years ago when he had commissioned me to transcribe Art Tatum solos that he eventually recorded for ASV, and again for Naxos. Of course I’ve followed his other Naxos releases, such as the fluent, idiomatic Ives Concord Sonata, and a recent collection of Wagner/Liszt transcriptions. The latter disc is quite special, featuring performances that embody what I call the three “v”s. In other words, they are vivid, virile and variegated. Moreover, Mayer’s full-bodied tone and lyrical sensitivity are always present; it is obvious that he is as familiar with the Wagner originals as he is with Liszt’s gazillions of notes.

Steven and I sat together during Mykola Suk’s recital. Over the years Suk has cultivated a Liszt style that seems impressionistic on the surface, rounded rather than angular, with an emphasis on long lines and harmonic point rather than bravura and scintillation. He has a tremendous, effortless technique, yet he consistently channels it towards musical ends, and often throws away passages that others shamelessly flaunt. “Mykola really inhabits the Dante Sonata,” Steven said. What an apt comment for an extraordinary performance. Suk stretched out the softest passages for maximum harmonic and melodic expression and mood painting, while the endless octaves emerged with boundless colours and shapes.

For my taste, Suk’s sophisticated approach worked less well in Thalberg’s Moise Fantasy. This is flashy, empty-headed music and I think you have to play it for what it is, and be direct, flashy and drive the points home. After all, you wouldn’t accompany Elvis Presley singing “All Shook Up” with Bill Evans chord voicings! On the other hand, Suk’s style suits Silvestrov’s two-part Dedication to Franz Liszt heard here in its world premiere. The music is stark, tonal, and sad, often sounding as if Liszt’s more accessible late pieces had been submerged under water. Following the most elegant, curvaceous Hungarian Rhapsody No 12 performed on planet Earth that day, Suk similarly tossed off the F minor Transcendental Etude. Its refinement of detail and remarkable speed reminded me of television host Steve Allen’s comment about Art Tatum’s celebrated keyboard runs, and how they’re like looking at a Da Vinci painting while riding a bicycle.

These days many performers in classical music speak to audiences to share insights and stories. But it is not often that an artist disavows a performance he has just given.

This happened on Wednesday night at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College the New School for Music, when the noted French-Cypriot pianist Cyprien Katsaris finished a ballistic account of Chopin’s “Military” Polonaise.

The bushy-haired Mr. Katsaris, 60, warned the many aspiring pianists in the audience never to offer an “ignominious” performance like the one he had just given for an exam or a competition; otherwise “the jury will ——,” he said, going silent. Then he made a gesture to slice his throat with his right hand. The audience laughed and applauded.

During this two-week festival the evening recitals mostly come in pairs. Earlier on this night, as part of the Prestige Series that presents younger artists, Gesa Luecker, a thoughtful German pianist, played works by Mozart, Liszt and Schumann.

Then, as part of the Masters Series, Mr. Katsaris, who has had a major, if somewhat unconventional, career and has not played often in America, offered lots of Liszt and Liszt transcriptions, as well as three Schubert-Liszt favorites. He also played works by Haydn, Chopin and his own finger-twisting arrangement of Gottschalk’s exuberant novelty piece, “The Banjo.”

If Mr. Katsaris’s Chopin polonaise was burly and clangorous, there was something compelling about it, if only because he had an extreme concept that he carried through, notes be damned. In a way, isn’t that the definition of a master? A master pianist may or may not be a role model. But a master has reached a point where he knows what he is about.

Mr. Katsaris gave some fascinating performances here, especially in his Liszt selections, played in honor of the 200th anniversary of that composer’s birth. In the murky, mysterious opening section of Liszt’s “Trauer-Vorspiel und Marsch,” Mr. Katsaris played with hushed dramatic intensity. The march section had the relentless force of his Chopin polonaise, but with the notes in place. The atmospheric, harmonically radical “Nuage Gris” sounded here like an anticipation of Schoenberg. In Liszt’s arrangement of the “Liebestod” from Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” Mr. Katsaris showed uncommon sensitivity for the orchestral textures the piano evokes.

He remains an individualistic and quirky pianist, even in his facial mannerisms (a few times he smiled at people in the audience while playing) and arm gestures (if his right hand is playing a solo melodic line, his left hand inevitably conducts it).

But in the midst of some curious performances, he showed himself capable of pianistic magic. As a break from the Romantics, he played a crisp, if somewhat too cute, account of Haydn’s Piano Sonata in C (Hob. XVI:35.) If you like Haydn crunchy, rather than smooth (to borrow terms from peanut butter), this was the performance for you.

For a long encore, he improvised, having explained to his audience that he regrets the decline of this honorable practice, at which Liszt, Beethoven and Mozart excelled. His improvisation folded familiar tunes (“The Merry Widow Waltz,” “Strangers in Paradise,” the Barcarole from “Tales of Hoffmann”) into paroxysms of piano sound that suggested updated Liszt and Scriabin.

Earlier Ms. Luecker proved a straightforward and sensitive pianist who brought lyrical grace and clarity to Mozart’s Sonata in C minor. Her artistry was at its best, rich with imagination and technical prowess, in works by Liszt, especially the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13. In Schumann’s popular “Carnaval,” a suite of character pieces, Ms. Luecker mostly showed rhapsodic flair and lovely colors, though sometimes her breathless tempos resulted in rushed and scrambled playing.

She and Mr. Katsaris could not have been more different. This festival is covering the gamut of approaches to the piano.

Liszt: Trauer-Vorspiel und Marsch, S. 206
Liszt: Nuage Gris, S. 199
Liszt: Csardas Obsintée, S. 225
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. "Héroïde-élégiaque," S. 181
Liszt: Chaconne from "Almira" (after Handel), S. 181
Liszt: Schlaflos, Frage und Antwort, S. 203
Liszt: La Lugubre Gondola No. 1, S. 200
Liszt: Richard Wagner - Venezia, S. 201
Liszt: Am Grabe Richard Wagner, S. 202
Wagner/Liszt: Liebstod from "Tristan und Isolde", S. 447

Haydn: Sonata in C major, Hob. XVI: 35
Schubert/Liszt: Ständchen
Schubert/Liszt: Der Müller und der Bach
Schubert/Liszt: Ave Maria
Chopin: Polonaise in A major, Op. 40, No. 1 (Military)
Chopin: Polonaise in E Flat minor, Op. 26, No. 2
Chopin: Larghetto from Concerto No. 2 (arranged for piano solo by Chopin)
Gottschalk/Katsaris: The Banjo


Earl Wild would have loved this.

Those readers currently engrossed in reading the late pianist's lengthy (over 800 pages) and controversial memoirs (he actually claims that a very accomplished musician I knew was a kleptomaniac!) know how well Wild appreciated the Romantic pianist's duel roles as artist and entertainer. Which is also a very good description of Cyprien Katsaris.

It is a pleasure to see someone who is as comfortable appearing before an audience as is Mr. Katsaris. He seems happy to be on stage (which he leaves only at the end of each half of the program) and he clearly loves playing the piano. If Mannes College did not close the building for the night after his recital he might still be there. He prefers not to have applause between certain pieces, so as to play them as a group, but he is happy to get up, bow, and make impromptu comments at other times. He finds it a waste of resources when he is playing with only one hand, so he conducts himself with the other. He is an exuberant but sensitive performer with a big technique, and he never plays a note without a musical idea and context behind it.

This was particularly impressive in the Liszt works he played on the first half. Poor Liszt playing can sound like noisy, hollow rhetoric, but that never happens with Mr. Katsaris. Every nuance is thought out, expressive and under control, and he has a wonderful command of dynamcs from very soft to pummeling the instrument into submission without ever making an ugly tone. The Csardas rhythm was obstinate indeed, and in Schlaflos, Frage und Antwort (Sleepless, Question and Answer) one experienced incessant tossing and turning. The Wagner pieces at the end of the first half were played with a wonderful understanding of color in harmonic modulation.

I don't think most pianists would play the Haydn Sonata in such a light, fast and Romantic manner as Mr. Katsaris, but it was nonetheless delightful, and it sure beat an overly serious and dry interpretation. Hearing such unusual things as Mr. Katsaris changing the voicing in repeats, sometimes bringing out the top of left hand chords instead of the melody, brought back happy memories of the late, lamented Shura Cherkassky hunting for middle voices in Mozart Sonatas.

The Schubert/Liszt pieces were wonderful, most especially the filigree lines in the Ave Maria which Mr. Katsaris wove while playing the melody nobly.

After playing the first Chopin Polonaise listed on the program he announced that, because of time constraints, he would not be playing the second one. He also warned students in the audience NEVER to play the first Polonaise in a competition as he had! Everyone got the point. It was so free-wheeling, tempo-wise, and he had such a good time playing it "his way" that it might not be "acceptable" to some people. One could argue that, though Chopin was one of the greatest Romantic composers, there is also a classicism in his music that is not necessarily improved by unlimited use of rubato. Much the same thing might be said about the way in which Mr. Katsaris played the slow movement of the F minor Concerto, in Chopin's own version for solo piano. But one could not say a word against it otherwise, for it was tonally gorgeous, and had every other element perfectly in place.

Mr. Katsaris concluded the official program with his verison of Gottschalk's Banjo, played at a blistering speed. Then, after making the very legitimate point that classical pianists no longer know how to improvise, he improvised. With shimmering passagework, octaves and other elements available in his large technical arsenal, he "dropped in on" what sounded like the Totentanz, the Ride of the Valkyries, the King and I, the Merry Widow, Tales of Hoffman, and probably a few other things I didn't recognize.

It was a wonderful, and quite unique evening!

One of the ABT’s offerings last season was The Lady of the Camellias, which uses piano music of Chopin. (There is scarcely any other music by Chopin, true.) The company employed three pianists, all of whom played for each performance, and the outstanding one of whom was Koji Attwood, a young American. He played the slow movement of Chopin’s B-minor sonata in arresting, affecting fashion.

Some weeks later, he played a recital at the Mannes school, on the Upper West Side. This was a recital in the International Keyboard Institute & Festival, that excellent enterprise run by Jerome Rose, the pianist and teacher, and his partner Julie Kedersha.

On the first half of his program, Attwood played music of Schumann, Chopin, Scriabin and Bortkiewicz. Who? Sergei Bortkiewicz, a Polish-Ukrainian-Russian pianist and composer who lived from 1877 to 1952. Attwood has championed Bortkiewicz, who deserves championing: The man was a smart, gifted Romantic. He would not be in the least out of place in the mainstream.

Attwood played everything with maturity, sobriety and command. He combined strength and subtlety, heft and lyricism. He always obeyed—which is to say, followed—the musical line. And he always showed respect for the music. There was uncommonly little ego in this music-making. At the same time, it was far from retiring.

The second half of the program was dominated by a transcription that Attwood himself made, of Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” string quartet. Do we need a transcription of a Schubert quartet, given that there are many Schubert piano sonatas, some of which are underplayed? It is not a question of need. Attwood has made a fine transcription, one that sounds like a big Schubertian—or Beethovenian—piano sonata. My guess is, Schubert himself would approve.

For an encore, Attwood gave us a guitar piece, another of his transcriptions: Tárrega’s famous Recuerdos de la Alhambra. It expressed what I can only describe as a happy melancholy.

Last year David Dubal did a program at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival on Chopin and Schumann in honor of the two hundredth anniversary of their births. This evening he presented a very interesting and illuminating program about Franz Liszt, in honor of Liszt's bicentennial. Mr. Dubal, known by most pianists for his former radio program, Reflections From the Keyboard, and for his current program, The Piano Matters (heard on http://www.wwfm.org) is extremely knowledgeable about pianists, piano history, the history of the recorded piano, and has strong convictions about many things. He may be the only person who thinks of time not in terms of the Gregorian, Jewish, Chinese or any other ethnic calendar, but by how many years we have come since Cristofori's invention of the piano (which finds us, I believe, in the year 302!).

The program consisted of Mr Dubal telling us his thoughts about Liszt, and those of other people of note, performances by three wonderful young pianists, and listening to historic performances of Liszt's music, accompanied by Mr. Dubal's insightful observations.

Mr. Dubal reminded us of the importance of Liszt in creating the career of the concert pianist, and expressed the thought that Liszt's life was "the greatest life ever lived." Although he did not have the finest education Mr. Dubal said that Liszt was an intellectual who was interested in everything, that he was an art connoisseur, and a great letter writer. Also, doing the right and generous thing, especially as a teacher and benefactor, was of great importance to Liszt. Thoughts corroborating this were expressed in quotes from several of his most famous students. Arthur Friedheim wrote of his spiritual powers. And Moritz Rosenthal called Liszt "The most wonderful man I've ever known."

All of the live performances were impressive.

Egyptian pianist Wael Farouk's playing of First and Twelfth Transcendental Etudes (Preludio and Chasse neige) was sizzling and propulsive.

Benjamin Laude explored the murky harmonies of Nuage Gris and gave a delightful performance of the delicate but also frisky Bagatelle Without Tonality.

Xu Han played a lovely but little known Piano Piece in A Flat major, and then the Rigoletto Paraphrase which was, in her hands, in turn, lush, expansive, subtle and powerful.

Most of the historic recordings that were played were "to die for!"

Mr. Dubal expressed the thought that, had Lhevinne not recorded anything but that brilliant yet poignant reading of the Schumann/Liszt Frühlingsnacht-Traum, that alone would have ensured his immortality.

Mr. Dubal was a well-known FOH (Friend of Horowitz), and we heard that supersonic performance of the Paganini/Liszt E Flat major Etude that many of us grew up with. Something new, at least for me, was hearing a rare recording of Horowitz playing the last section of the Sixth Hungarian Rhapsody. Here one was reminded that speed was not everything for this master; finding the perfect speed at which the music logically "worked" was. The octave section was actually begun rather slowly but gradually "grew" via bassline accentuation, crescendo and acceleration into something fantastically exciting.

The great, and unlucky Simon Barere, who died in 1951 while playing the Grieg Concerto at Carnegie Hall, was heard twice on this program. Though he was an artist of great musical sensitivity and expressiveness he is most often remembered for his incredible control at high speed. (Bruce Hungerford once described how he and some friends listened to a Barere LP at a very slow speed to see if all the notes were actually there. They were!) Barere's Gnomenreigen was delightful, and later we heard his performance of La Leggiarezza, with which no flaw could be found.

Though after that Mr. Dubal gave us Moiseiwitsch's playing of La Leggiarezza, which was even more poetic and exquisite.

What historic figures will David Dubal celebrate in the future? Certainly 2013 will be the bicentennial year of Wagner, Verdi and Alkan. I'm not aware of any great musical figures born in 1812, but 2012 will be the centenary year of pianists Adrian Aeschbacher and Rudolf Firkusny, composer Hugo Weisgall and music critic Ross Parmenter. In any case, I am sure Mr. Dubal will come up with something!

Jerome Rose opens Mannes College/New School for Music festival.

It’s another New York July, and for the first time in ages I can attend the International Keyboard Institute & Festival at the Mannes College/New School for Music auditorium on 150 West 85th Street, now in its 13th season.

Traditionally, founder and artistic director Jerome Rose gives the opening recital. He did so with an all-Brahms program, and, believe me, the man has never played better. Everything is coming together for Rose now. The music emerged with multi-levelled, thoughtfully contoured textures that were full-bodied, clear and cogent, rather than notey. Every piece told a story in sweeping paragraphs and long phrases that allowed Brahms’ cross-rhythmic operations their due, moving over the bar lines yet with unflagging rhythmic incision. You heard that in the two Op 79 Rhapsodies that opened the program, in the F Minor Sonata’s craggy first movement (Rose’s effortless, hair-raising octaves at the development section’s start stunned me), in a slow movement that ebbed and flowed, and a febrile, chance-taking finale that combined Rubinstein’s élan and Katchen’s nerve. Rose gave over the concert’s second half to the Op 116 piano pieces, and fused poetry with power, pushing the Yamaha grand’s immense dynamic range to the maximum, yet never, ever banging.

For an encore Rose played Liszt’s Third Consolation. The final bars are sparse and threadbare, and it was interesting how Rose deliberately drew them out to give them a stronger conclusive sense. This is but one example of how Rose’s musical choices are borne out of long experience and living with this repertoire. It’s been 50 years since he placed first in the International Busoni Competition, and I suspect this current stage of his long teaching and performing life will reap the most artistic rewards.

Indeed, lots of pianists evolve late in life, and wind up producing very special work: think of Rubinstein’s Indian summer, Bolet’s belated international career, the breadth and repose typifying Brendel in his early seventies, Horszowski flowering in his nineties, Earl Wild’s staggering Brahms F Minor Sonata at age 86, Egon Petri at 74 raising the roof as he made child’s play of Busoni’s Fantasia Contrappuntistica. To this stellar list, add Jerome Rose’s Brahms on July 17th, 2011. Will his recent re-recording of the F Minor Sonata be equally uplifting?

Brahms: Rhapsodies, Op. 79
Brahms: Sonata No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 5
Brahms: Fantasy Pieces, Op. 116


Toscanini's statement "Tradition is the last bad performance" notwithstanding there are some very GOOD traditions in the musical life of New York, and one of the finest is the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, which started its annual extensive series of programs all about the piano for the 13th time this evening. During the next two weeks those who come to Mannes College will be able to hear two recitals every day, performed by accomplished artists at all different stages of their careers, master classes and a piano competition. The audience consists of students, seniors and everything in-between. People greet fellow listeners they have met in previous years, and the audience includes some very distinguished musicians, including well-known teachers and critics.

One of the traditions of the Festival is that it opens with a piano recital by its founder, Jerome Rose. Last year he played an all-Schubert program and this time he gave us an evening of Brahms. The program notes indicate that Mr. Rose won the Concert Artists Guild award as well as a Fulbright to study in Vienna in 1961, but he is still full of strength and can make a tremendous sound at the instrument.

The Rhapsodies and the first movement of the Sonata were full of drama and passion. But when he got to the first D Flat major section in the second movement he really got into his "groove" or, rather, Brahms's. This was truly eloquent playing, and Mr. Rose had the rapt attention of his audience from then on.

He caught the rambunctiousness of the third movement Scherzo very effectively and played the chorale theme in the Trio with great feeling. There was suspense in his playing of the fourth movement, and one could imagine a premonition of impressionism in the way he handled the "floating" G flat dominant ninth chords. The last movement had plenty of excitement and dash; Mr. Rose never takes the easy way out, tempo-wise, in fast movements.

After the intermission, Mr. Rose played all of the Fantasy Pieces of Op. 116. Again, he highlighted the contrasts between the fast and slow pieces effectively. The A minor Intermezzo was particularly lovely. But for this listener the most impressive performance in this group was of the enigmatic E minor Intermezzo. Here, his playing was hushed, and revelatory.

Mr. Rose concluded with one encore, the Consolation No. 3 of Liszt, in honor of the Liszt Bicentennial. It was absolutely beautiful!

The 12th Annual International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College is underway, and not a moment too soon for classical piano aficionados. It would be a significant addition to New York cultural life at any time of the year, but as it always takes place during the last two weeks of July, when concert activity in New York slows down, it is particularly welcome. It features reasonably priced recitals by excellent pianists at all different stages in their careers, lectures, a competition and special events. Among these are a program dedicated to the memory of Earl Wild, who died earlier this year, and a day of tribute to noted pianist and pedagogue Leonard Shure (1910-1995) whose centenary is being celebrated this year.

The opening night recital is traditionally given by Festival Founder Jerome Rose. There are several composers with whom his name is particularly associated, among them Liszt, Beethoven and Schubert. This evening was devoted to Schubert, primarily to two of the great last three sonatas written at the end of the composer's much too short life.

Mr. Rose had barely begun the beautiful G Flat Impromptu, which seemed like an invocation, when he, and the audience were plagued with cellphone noises caused by people either too selfish, or incompetent to turn their electronics off before the program started, despite recording engineer Joe Patrych's reminder. Mr. Rose stopped playing, folded his arms and stared at the audience before starting over and playing perhaps even better. Other unmusical distractions of the evening included someone coughing right behind me during much of the first movement of the first sonata. It did not, unfortunately, occur to this person to leave the room.

Despite these annoyances, a full house was able to enjoy an evening of powerful and passionate playing by Mr. Rose, who was in very fine form.

His teachers included Adolph Baller, Mr. Shure (who was a Schnabel student) and Rudolph Serkin, so he is heir to several pianistic traditions. Serkin and Schnabel, though very different in many ways, were both proponents of a fearless approach to piano playing. Serkin, I am told, would not allow changes and substitutions to make things easier (such as using both hands at the beginning of the Hammerklavier Sonata) and Schnabel disparaged what he called "emergency rallentandos!" Similarly, Mr. Rose does nothing to make his life easier if it will lessen the musical effect. Fast movements are played fast, and highpoints are played full-strength, yet always with a fine, round tone.

The C minor Sonata is the least played of the last three sonatas. Mr. Rose's performance emphasized its drama and intensity, even in the Menuet, which is sometimes seen as more light-hearted. (Also, in both sonatas, he did the repeat of the first movement exposition, which is often left out in these long works.) Particularly effective were the threatening chromatic runs just before the recapitulation in the first movement, and the sforzando outbursts in the second. The tarantella-like last movement was also very exciting. Fast, treacherous and featuring some of Schubert's most remarkable modulations (at one point coming to rest in B Flat major, pausing for two measures of silence, then starting a magical new section in B major) it takes a certain amount of courage as well as control to bring it off well, and Mr. Rose certainly succeeded.

The A major Sonata is such a wonderful piece of music I can't get over it! Though, like the other sonata, it has drama and brilliance, it also has wonderful areas of lyricism and sublime beauty. In the first movement, Mr. Rose's playing of the last statement of the main theme before the concluding arpeggios was gorgeous, as was his handling of the short C Sharp major section leading into the recapitulation of the F Sharp minor theme in the second movement. The Scherzo movement was played with great charm, and the last movement with particular warmth.

Mr. Rose played one short, but lovely encore, the second movement of Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze, in memory of Leonard Shure, with whom he studied that work.

It was a very fine evening of music-making on a high level.

The International Keyboard Institute & Festival at Mannes College the New School for Music devoted Saturday to commemorating the centenary of Leonard Shure, a pianist who made sterling recordings well into his 70s, and who died in 1995, at 84. Some of Saturday’s activities looked at Shure’s work directly, through a videotape of a master class, for example, or an examination of his recordings.

But Shure was more of a pianist’s pianist than a household name, even at the height of his career, and his greatest legacy was probably his teaching. Having studied with Artur Schnabel, he passed along Schnabel’s tradition of Austrian classicism and intellectual clarity to several generations of American pianists: among them, Jerome Rose, who directs the institute; Ursula Oppens; Beth Levin; and the composer David Del Tredici.

Those pianists, along with Victor Rosenbaum, Edward Arthur Shure (one of Leonard’s sons), Neal Stulberg and Phillip Moll, played a recital in tribute to their teacher on Saturday evening, and the Mannes auditorium was packed for the occasion.

It was not always easy to tell what Shure’s influence on these pianists was. It has been decades since they studied with him, and they have each found a distinctive interpretive path. The two most memorable performances were of works composed after Shure’s death.

Ms. Oppens extended her Elliott Carter franchise with “Tri-Tribute” (2007-8), a set of three short, sparkling works that she played with consummate clarity and zest. The third, “Matribute,” was composed in time for Ms. Oppens’s 2008 recording of all Mr. Carter’s piano music at the time, as well as a Tanglewood premiere that summer. Since then Mr. Carter has added the meditative “Fratribute” and the bright, swirling “Sistribute” — hardly enough for another disc, perhaps, but Mr. Carter is only 101.

Ms. Oppens also gave a dark-hued account of Mendelssohn’s F sharp minor Fantasy (Op. 28), which was closer in spirit to the other pianists’ performances. But Mr. Del Tredici exercised a composer’s prerogative of playing only his own music, the innocently melodic, light-textured “Three Gymnopedies” (2003).

Mr. Del Tredici and Ms. Oppens performed in the second half of the program. Earlier Ms. Levin gave a performance of Beethoven’s 32 Variations in C minor that concentrated on Beethoven’s gruff, muscular side. Mr. Rosenbaum played the four pieces of Brahms’s Opus 119 with a courtly, poetic elegance, and Edward Shure offered an interpretation of Schumann’s Fantasy in C (Op. 17) in which storminess and subtlety mingled.

For a slight change in texture, and a hint of the spirit of salon performances of times past, Mr. Stulberg and Mr. Moll closed the first part of the program with vibrant accounts of Dvorak’s Slavonic dances in their original duet versions: those in C minor (Op. 46, No. 7), A flat (Op. 46, No. 6) and C (Op. 72, No. 7). And Mr. Rose, ending the concert, brought his characteristically large but concentrated sound to Chopin’s A minor Waltz (Op. 34, No. 1) and a beautifully phrased reading of the Ballade No. 3 (Op. 47).

Most people who knew Leonard Shure felt that he was one of America’s two greatest pianists, says Jerome Rose.
Along with William Kappell, Shure had a performing and teaching career of tremendous impact. His legacy will be celebrated today, when his students and fans come from all over the world for a series of master classes, concerts and events as a part of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College the New School for Music, where Shure once taught.
“Many of the events will basically mirror, elucidate and resuscitate the brilliant career of the artist in his centenary year,” says pianist and IKIF founder-director Jerome Rose.
Shure, who died in 1995, appeared with virtually all major national orchestras and conductors — for example, the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Serge Koussevitsky. He was the first piano soloist to perform at the Berkshire Music Festival, Tanglewood’s precursor.
He studied with Austrian piano demigod Artur Schnabel and become his assistant, and later taught acclaimed pianists like Leon Fleisher, Gilbert Kalish and Rose. During today’s event, listeners can experience his teaching style through a three-hour film of his lessons.
“He will completely come alive with his voice, his expression and his pianistic prowess,” says Rose. “He was a man who demonstrated constantly. He would play everything.”
Shure’s recordings will be played as well, and his students will gather to pay tribute. Those appearing include Rose, Ursula Oppens, composer David Del Tredici, Victor Rosenbaum, Phillip Moll, Neal Stulberg, Beth Levin and Edward A. Shure. The repertoire encompasses Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Dvorak, Del Tredici, Carter, Mendelssohn and Chopin.
Shure’s influence manifests in the successes not only of his students, but also of their students. Many pianists Rose has taught in his own 50-year career — the “grandchildren” of Shure’s teaching methods — will play at IKIF.
For Shure, art was sacred — not entertainment, but a lifestyle.
“He treated the text of the music with religious dedication,” says Rose. “There was always the intent to find the profound in any phrase that was played and I would say that he lived a transcendental life in the way he approached music.”
Rose studied with Shure from 1956 to 1960 at Mannes. Memories of his teacher are with him always, whenever he hears music.
As he describes his lessons, “You were working with the supreme master hoping to achieve true mastery over your art.
“You were learning all the time so there is absolutely no way that the influence is not with you constantly. There is not a day of my life as a musician, pianist and artist that the subconscious memory is not being constantly revived.”

Popular media sometimes transmit highbrow culture, and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, with its frenetic, tail-chasing character, has been used in several cartoons. But there is nothing funny about its demands on the performer.

The Korean pianist HaeSun Paik blazed confidently through the triple salchows and back flips of this vigorously athletic workout, which ends with a cascade of prestissimo octaves. The rhapsody, played here with a cadenza by Rachmaninoff, concluded Ms. Paik’s recital on Wednesday evening at Mannes College the New School for Music, part of the college’s lively International Keyboard Institute and Festival.

Her program, in the festival’s Masters Series, opened with an elegant, sweet-toned rendition of Beethoven’s Rondo in C (Op. 51, No. 1), followed by an unmemorable performance of Schumann’s “Humoreske” in B flat, whose title refers to the four humors of Hippocratic medicine. Schumann, whose bicentennial is being celebrated this year, wrote to Clara Wieck, his future wife:

“All week I sat at the piano composing, writing, laughing and crying, all at the same time. You will find this beautifully illustrated in my Opus 20, the massive Humoreske.”

After intermission came an excellent (if occasionally bangy) performance of Scriabin’s Sonata No. 5, which heralded the evolution of his Romantic ethos into a more atonal style. Ms. Paik also gave a thoughtfully considered rendition of Liszt’s “Consolation” No. 3.

As her first encore, she offered a poetic interpretation of Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 in C sharp minor, the same piece played by Michail Lifits as an encore after his recital earlier on Wednesday evening in the Prestige Series, geared toward emerging artists.

Mr. Lifits, a native of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, proved himself a distinctive performer in his finely wrought approach to Beethoven’s Sonata No. 1 in F minor, which opened the program. He played with a cleanly articulated touch and beautiful phrasing. Particularly in the second-movement Adagio, he provided warmth, intimacy and a singing tone.

The Mozartean hues of that early sonata were contrasted with the epic grandeur of the Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Beethoven’s final work in the genre. It has fugal elements, like his other late-period sonatas, and a stormy first movement, like others of his works in C minor. Mr. Lifits offered an exciting performance of the turbulent opening section and a deeply musical Arietta.

The program concluded with the Sonata No. 3 by Chopin, who admired Beethoven’s Op. 111. Mr. Lifits sailed through the virtuosic finale with aplomb.

Today's activities at the Festival were devoted to the memory of the American pianist and pedagogue, Leonard Shure (1910-1995.) Earlier in the day a film of Mr. Shure giving a master class was played, there was a lecture about his life, and students discussed his legacy. The last program of the day was the recital by some of his finest students, which I attended.

Beth Levin's performance of the Beethoven Variations was not severe, but romantic in conception, dramatic and powerful, using a particularly wide range of dynamics. Her ability to sustain a line during the slow variations was especially impressive.

Victor Rosenbaum favored very slow tempi for the first and third of the Four Brahms Pieces, though the first one was quite beautiful and ethereal in nature. There was obvious thought behind everything he played.

Edward Arthur Shure, the youngest son of Leonard Shure, struggled a bit with the last movement of the Schumann Fantasy, but showed he knew his way around this work with his understanding of its drama, a sense of spontaneity to some sections that really made them sound fresh, and some nice touches such as setting up the introduction for an effective entrance of the first melody.

The Slavonic Dances of Dvorak, as played by Neal Stulberg and Phillip Moll, were delightful, full of charm and humor.

Some of the most interesting performances of the evening were of the 21st century compositions played just after the intermission. And if modern works were always played as well as this, just about everybody would like them!

David Del Tredici's playing of his tonal Gymnopedies was romantic, in turn beautiful, explosive and lyrical. He played with intensity, and the last piece, entitled My Loss, was particularly effective, with great masses of anguished sound.

Ursula Oppens' way with the Elliott Carter work (composed in his 100th year!) was terrific! The first piece had spatterings of fast notes that sounded like code. The slow, second piece was very beautiful and expressive. The third piece was fascinating, featuring, at times, what seemed like fragments of atonal melody with "comments" and ornamentation around it. Then she played the Mendelssohn Fantasy, and why not? It's all music, and there seemed nothing strange about segueing from one into the other. Indeed, it is all too rare that we hear most of Mendelssohn's piano works. (And some of the even less often played works than this one will be featured in Sontraud Speidel's Monday evening recital.)

Do you have any idea how hard it is to play at the end of a long concert (at 10:30!), at the end of a very long day?! One had to feel sympathy for Festival Founder Jerome Rose who, nonetheless, concluded the program by playing the Chopin A minor Waltz with warmth and charm, and then gave a deeply felt and poetic reading of the A Flat Ballade.

I think Leonard Shure would have been very proud of what we heard this evening!

As a member of the panel that selected Haesun Paik as one of the winners of the Bruce Hungerford Memorial Award at the Young Concert Artists auditions in 1991 I was very interested to finally hear her again, especially as her program this evening included the Scriabin Fifth Sonata. Although she has a very busy international career, I had somehow not heard her again in all this time. But I remembered she had played the Scriabin at that audition, and that I was impressed with her flair and sense of drama. And after 19 years, I thought, it should be at least as good, or better! (Actually, 19 years is not such a long time to have a piece in your repertoire. When I read Rubinstein's memoirs I realized that some of the works I heard him play late in his career had been in his repertoire for 60 or 70 years!)

Ms. Paik began the evening with a reading of the Beethoven Rondo that was warm and sensitive, though having a bit more rubato than one often hears in Beethoven.

And, with that, I will end my "criticism."

This was a fabulous concert, and Haesun Paik should be a big name!

We are, of course, long past the days when people took seriously the idea that the nationality of the performer should guarantee success in music by composers of the same background, ie. that a Pole should be expected to play Chopin well, or that a German should be good at Beethoven. However, were that notion still considered valid, this evening might have been used to support the premise that Schumann, Liszt and Scriabin were all Korean, so great was the pianist's identification with their idioms!

What makes Haesun Paik such a terrific interpreter of Romantic music? Several things come to mind.

She has both power and subtlety. She understands pacing, one of the most important and least talked about aspects of music. And she is, so to speak, an actress. No, she doesn't impose herself upon the music; rather, she finds and reveals the drama within the music, which is what playing "classical music," even of the Romantic era, is all about.

There are myriad changes of color, mood and everything else in Schumann's strange and wonderful Humoreske. Ms. Paik missed not one of them. Just a few of the noteworthy details included hearing the beautiful and sensuous G minor theme, marked Einfach und zart, as it shifted into the tumbling Intermezzo, and how the section marked mit einigem Pomp was played strongly, yet leaving room for an even more rousing sound in the final Allegro.

The Scriabin Sonata was fantastic! Having an even greater emotional range than the Schumann (if that's possible) it went back and forth between lush, languid phrases with gentle palpitations and lurching great eruptions of sound, sometimes resembling whiplash. This was as impressive a performance as I've heard of this work. And I've heard Horowitz.

The Liszt Consolation seemed, in a way, a sort of Liszt equivalent to a Beethoven slow movement, in that it's not easy to sustain the line, so sensitive pacing and phrasing are all important, not just fine fingerwork.

The Hungarian Rhapsody was dazzling. Ms. Paik never takes "careful" tempi, and plays fast sections with great energy and abandon, never, however, neglecting attention to the other parts, such as the exquisite E major theme. The Rachmaninoff cadenza, new to me, seemed mischievous and a bit odd. (After the program I suddenly had the peculiar idea to imagine what a Schnabel cadenza to this Rhapsody might sound like, but was informed by my seat mates, who should know, that it is not likely one will be found!) A standing ovation from almost the entire audience followed.

Ms. Paik's first encore, the C Sharp minor posthumous Nocturne of Chopin, was gorgeous, especially the winding down at the end. And the famous Liszt arrangement of Schumann's song Widmung (Dedication) was also wonderfully played.

It seems that, with Romantic music especially, this pianist can do no wrong. Go hear her!

Sontraud Speidel is a refined, sensitive and confident pianist, as well as a highly respected teacher in her hometown of Karlsruhe, Germany, and in Korea and many other places. Everything is under control and she never gets carried away with herself, though her tendency for speeds which are on the slow side sometimes lessens the visceral excitement one expects in fast movments.

Ms. Speidel spoke before each group on the first half of the program, and her comments were enlightening. She told us of Schumann's disappointment with an unfavorable review of the Kinderszenen. Her performances of these short works were very fine. In particular, Träumerei was beautiful and dreamy, and the last section of Kind im Einschlummern was wonderfully effective. (She has a beautiful tone and excels in controlling the piano in very soft dynamics.)

The Mendelssohn Sonatas, despite the high opus number of the latter, are early works, written when the composer was 12 and 13 years old. One would be happy to hear them performed more often. Noteworthy was the bluster and good humor of the first movement of the second sonata, which was followed by a dreamy slow movement, and then a witty presto.

Ms. Speidel spoke about the unequal treatment of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847), Felix's elder sister. Though her early education was the same as Felix's she, as a woman, was not allowed to have a career as an adult. She continued to compose and perform at concerts at her home, which were attended by the elite of her day. Though her family did not encourage her to continue with her work, her husband did. Ms. Speidel expressed the opinion that Fanny was just as talented as her brother. (I wonder if she has heard the story I heard at a lecture some years ago in which the speaker told of Felix visiting the then young Queen Victoria, who liked to sing. He offered to accompany her in any of a group of songs he had brought along. After they had done several of them he said "Would your Majesty be willing to sing one of my songs, too? Those were my sister's songs.") The Saltarello Ms. Speidel played was charming and had energy, though one could imagine it might have had even a little more "spice" if played a bit faster.

The second half of the program was devoted to Schumann's Kreisleriana. This work, in Ms. Speidel's conception, lasted 40 minutes, somewhat longer than usual, as the fast movements were played in an unhurried manner. Ms. Speidel seems to favor lyricism over passion, and there was much to admire in her performance, especially the expressive way she played the themes of the first two movements in B Flat major, the interesting voicing, the clarity of the fughetta, and the syncopation in the last movement.

Ms. Speidel gave one encore, Mendelssohn's Spinning Song, which percolated nicely.

It’s not unusual that the most poignant and intimate moments in solo recitals come in the encores, when the artist is fully warmed up, any nerves have dissipated and a comfortable rapport has been established with the audience. Performers often feel free to choose simpler, less showy pieces after demonstrating their technique during strenuous programs.

The three encores performed by the Spanish pianist Joaquín Achúcarro on Wednesday evening at Mannes College the New School for Music were the highlight of his recital, part of the Masters Series in the annual International Keyboard Institute & Festival, a magnet for piano buffs that features recitals by veteran and emerging musicians, lectures and master classes.

Mr. Achúcarro began his encores with Scriabin’s Nocturne for the Left Hand after telling the audience that his right hand would go on strike if not given a rest. Next came a dreamily evocative rendition of Debussy’s “Claire de Lune” and a poetic, introspective performance of Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat (Op. 9, No. 2)...

Recitals in the Masters Series follow Prestige Series events, which feature emerging artists. On Wednesday the young Chinese pianist Jue Wang, the recipient of numerous competition prizes, began his recital with elegantly conceived performances of Ravel’s Sonatina and Miroirs. But it was in the second half, playing Liszt, that Mr. Wang really shone. In the Transcendental Études No. 9 “Ricordanza” and No. 10 in F minor he coaxed an impressive range of colors from the instrument with virtuosic and expressive ease.

Liszt’s “Bénédiction de Dieu Dans la Solitude” received a similarly impressive interpretation, the magisterial melodies unfolding with serene grace.

Joaquín Achúcarro's recital was one of the events I was told not to miss, especially as I had not heard him before. Everyone spoke of him with great respect. And, indeed, he was received with special warmth by this evening's audience, which included such prominent pianists as Gary Graffman and Yefim Bronfman in addition to the many musicians of the Festival community, and other music lovers.

A vigorous white-haired Spanish gentleman who juggles teaching at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and in Italy, with his concert schedule, his career took off after he won the 1959 Liverpool International Competition and has taken him to, so far, 59 countries.

Mr. Achúcarro has a wonderful understanding of the Romantic idiom that includes an unfailingly beautiful tone, and a naturalness to his phrasing. One does not sit there wondering, as with some pianists "What does this mean?" or "What is he trying to say?" He makes everything clear.

Also, his is not an egotistical approach to performing, as is sometimes associated with this music. He does not seem to be out to impress us with how fast or loudly he can play, or how great he himself is. Rather, he is taking us on a trip, and showing us all sorts of lovely and impressive things along the way, so we can enjoy them with him.

There were many memorable moments in this recital, including particularly expressive playing in the posthumous variations, and real drama in the last section of the Symphonic Etudes.

Among the highlights of the second half of the program was the Barcarolle, which had a natural flow, yet also a different sound for each section of the boat's journey. The B minor Waltz was played with special sensitivity, charm and warmth. And the dramatic Scherzo was played with wonderful energy and sometimes, such as in a phrase which begins in E minor about two thirds through the work, great eloquence.

Three encores followed. The first was the Scriabin Nocturne for the Left Hand. It was exquisite, and I couldn't help but think about how rarely a pianist is called upon to play such filigree passages with the left hand.

Mr. Achúcarro next played Debussy's Clair de Lune, which was simply perfect. Then, as the audience wouldn't let him go yet, he concluded with a lovely reading of the Chopin E Flat Nocturne, Op. 9, No. 2.

David Dubal used the 200th anniversary year of the births of Chopin and Schumann as the basis for his program this evening, which included live and recorded performances of works of those composers, and his comments about the composers, and many other matters that he thought important.

The pianist in New York who doesn't know who David Dubal is has much in common with the Tea Party member who is an Obama supporter; he/she probably doesn't exist. Mr. Dubal is extremely knowledgeable, as well as thoughtful, deep, and outrageous, perhaps in equal parts. As one who was several times fortunate to enter, as he called it, the "pantheon" of performers on his unique program "Reflections from the Keyboard" I was quite upset when it went off the air, with the reorganization of radio station WQXR. So I was delighted to learn it has been recreated with the new name The Piano Matters, and can now be heard at the same Wednesday evening time as before online.

Mr. Dubal spoke of the very contrasting lives and circumstances of Chopin and Schumann, and of the difficulties they faced, particularly Schumann, whose musical and pianistic background were weak. Mr. Dubal said Schumann "willed himself a great composer." And he described Chopin as the "great spiritualization" of the piano.

He also read poetry, and other thoughtful words from Tennyson and Goethe to Basho and Lao-Tze and railed, as he often does, against over-mechanization and materialism.

An interesting concept he spoke of, which is rather in contrast with what many people think nowadays, is the idea that the performer is just as important as, and an equal partner with the composer. He wants performers to be thought of as transformers, or "co-creators" rather than (mere) interpreters of the composer's wishes.

Four pianists performed during the program. Dongning Yang played two Chopin etudes, and Mirian Conti gave us two mazurkas. Joseph Smith played a Schumann fugue which may have been based on one of the
Chopin Nouvelle Etudes, and a quirky (Schumann) fughetta. Inna Faliks gave a particularly beautiful and expressive performance of the theme from the Symphonic Etudes, and several of the posthumous variations.

The recordings of pianists of the past included one artist whose playing I had never heard before, Clara Schumann's student, Fanny Davies, in a 1930 recording of one movement of the Davidsbündlertänze. We also heard another movement of it, plus an awesomely expressive version of one of the Chopin Nouvelles Etudes with Cortot. Mr. Dubal even made a convincing case that the brilliant Lhevinne recording of the Thirds Etude is not quite up to the level of the brilliant AND more poetic Friedman performance. The great "sleeper" of the evening was Sirota's wondrous playing of the F minor Etude from Op. 10. Why he isn't better known as a great Chopin interpreter is a mystery to me.

Mindful of the structure of his presentation, and with his eye on the clock, knowing that the building had to be vacated on time, Mr. Dubal concluded by asking if we thought the two composers ever met one another, and then read to us about the happy occasion in 1836 when that happened.

11th International Keyboard Institute and Festival
Mannes College
New York City
August 1st, 2009

Haydn: Sonata in E-Flat Major, Hob. 16/52
Chopin: Ballade in A-Flat major, Op. 47
Alexander Kobrin

Albeniz: Evocación and El Albaicin from Iberia
José Ramos Santana

Gottschalk: The Banjo
Liszt/Horowitz: Rákóczy March
Steven Mayer

Intermission

Ravel: La vallé des Cloches (from Miroirs)
Scriabin: Sonata No. 2 in G-Sharp Minor (Sonata-Fantasy), Op. 19
Magdalena Baczewska

Liszt: Vallée d'Obermann
Liszt: Mephisto Waltz
Jerome Rose

This last concert at the Festival was originally supposed to be a recital by Olga Kern. But Ms. Kern was unable to appear, so five of the pianists who had already performed recitals at the Festival divided up the evening. And, whereas it can be a fascinating experience to spend an evening with one pianist, getting to know the various facets of his or her artistic personality, it can also be a pleasure to hear a group of fine artists, and appreciate the contrasts they present.

Mr. Kobrin sounded at all times very calm and controlled. He seems happy to play very quietly a good deal of the time. Some other details of his performance seemed unusual to me, ie. I have never heard the beginning of that Chopin Ballade played so slowly. And yet, his conceptions of the music were always interesting, and convincing. And some things, such as the slow movement of the Haydn, were particularly beautifully played.

Mr. Ramos Santana's playing of the pieces from Iberia were right on target, full of fragrance, sensuality and the uniquely Spanish feeling, and (especially in El Albaicin) rhythmic character.

As anyone who has heard Steven Mayer before (as I have) knows, he's a pianist with huge power and technique. His performance of the Gottschalk Banjo was terrifically exciting, played at both top speed AND volume (which is not easy!). With all the extra notes, octaves, and other challenges Horowitz added in his transcription of Liszt's Rákóczy March, one can't help wondering how many pianists can successfully play it. Well, Mr. Mayer left no doubt in anybody's mind that he can!

A complete contrast to that mood was offered by Ms. Baczewska's calm and beautiful playing of Ravel's Valley of Bells. Her performance of the Scriabin Sonata was also very effective, displaying both the stormy and hypnotic aspects of the first movement, and maintaining great clarity amidst all the swirls of notes in the second.

Jerome Rose did not reach his stride in the Vallée d'Obermann; he started in it right from the first note. This was some of the finest playing I've heard from him, passionate, virtuosic, and totally in the idiom of this music. He followed it, and finished the program, with an impressive performance of the Mephisto Waltz.

One looks forward to the twelfth season of the Festival!

The International Keyboard Institute and Festival has an embarrassment of riches this summer. With twice as many recent competition winners and established pianists as there are days in the festival, the recitals at Mannes College the New School for Music are offered in nightly pairs: one at 6 and a second at 8:30, both full-length programs.

The juxtapositions can be a bit odd stylistically. At the early performance on Monday, Sofya Gulyak, a Russian pianist who won the William Kapell International Piano Competition in 2007, played a varied program — Bach-Busoni, Clementi, Brahms, Schumann, Liszt and Shostakovich — all in a thundering, steel-tread style in which virtuosity is almost everything, and subtlety is an occasional footnote.

Yuan Sheng, the Chinese pianist who played the late show, addressed a more constricted group of composers: just Bach, Schubert and Chopin. But he created a distinct sound world for each, and he shaped the works at hand so thoughtfully that his program seemed kaleidoscopic.

Ms. Gulyak began promisingly. The Bach-Busoni Chaconne benefited from the style of solid, assured pianism that she brought to it, and there was something appealing about the apparent ease with which she sailed through this difficult, monumental score.

In Clementi’s Sonata in C (Op. 33, No. 3), you could convince yourself, briefly, that Ms. Gulyak was intent on presenting this largely overlooked Romantic as a fire-breathing proto-Liszt, decades ahead of his time. But Clementi’s music does not sustain that approach, and even when Ms. Gulyak shifted down, in the almost Mozartean central slow movement, the explosive spirit of the opening Allegro con spirito lingered.

Her approach to Brahms’s Fantasies (Op. 116) and Schumann’s Intermezzi (Op. 4) were also hard-driven. Even Liszt’s arrangement of Schumann’s bittersweet “Widmung” was transformed into a brisk, almost breathless showpiece. Occasionally — in the quiet section of the prelude from Shostakovich’s Prelude and Fugue in D flat (Op. 87, No. 15), for example — Ms. Gulyak showed a capacity for delicacy and introspection. But those moments were fleeting.

Mr. Sheng brings considerable power to his playing, too, but he husbands it carefully. His opening pieces, the A major and A minor Preludes and Fugues from Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier,” Book 1, were models of clarity, balance and proportion. That is not to say that they were straightforward or unmediated: Mr. Sheng made the A minor Prelude into a fiery drama, with the equally energetic but stunningly voiced Fugue as an otherworldly rejoinder.

The qualities that made Mr. Sheng’s Bach so appealing were also present, though configured differently and with a more Romantic brand of elegance, in Schubert’s Sonata in G (D. 894). Mr. Sheng knows how to make a Schubert theme sing, and when Schubert packs his textures with several melodies at once, Mr. Sheng’s ear for balance is unfailing.

In the Andante, for example, he created the illusion of a three-dimensional space in which themes and counterthemes, each with its own dynamics and coloration, appeared to move at different distances from the listener.

If the cerebral and the dramatic found common ground in Mr. Sheng’s Bach and Schubert, the prevailing passion in his Chopin, to which he devoted the second half of his program, was impetuousness. But as he demonstrated in his six selections, impetuousness comes in many forms.

In a stormy account of the Ballade No. 1 (Op. 23) it was an insistent swirl that pulled you in; in the Berceuse (Op. 57) it was a gentle fleetness. In two dances — a Mazurka (Op. 30, No. 4) and a Tarantella (Op. 43) — the attraction was entirely visceral. And in the Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise (Op. 22), Mr. Sheng revisited all those qualities and ratcheted up the fire as well.

It can be deeply affecting to encounter the artistry of gifted young musicians who exude artistic seriousness. Yet during a program of formidable piano works by Liszt and Ravel on Wednesday night at Mannes College the New School for Music, the 21-year-old Russian virtuoso Vitaly Pisarenko was so serious in his manner and musical approach that he seemed unhappy.

His program, sponsored by the college’s International Keyboard Institute and Festival, a two-week offering of concerts, lectures and master classes, was part of its Prestige Series, presenting emerging pianists in daily recitals at 6 p.m. Mr. Pisarenko played with prodigious technique, myriad shadings and scrupulous accuracy. His account of Ravel’s “Miroirs” had wondrous delicacy and moments of tender sensitivity.

But when accepting applause, Mr. Pisarenko, a slight and shy-looking young man, appeared to be miserable. A certain reticence, even stiffness, in his otherwise impressive performances suggested that playing the piano is a somber discipline for him.

The contrast could not have been greater when, later that evening, in the festival’s Masters Series, the American pianist Jeffrey Swann, well known to New York audiences, presented a program called “The Philosophical Piano,” playing the “Emerson” movement from Ives’s “Concord” Sonata, Liszt’s Sonata in B minor and Beethoven’s Sonata No. 32 in C minor. Mr. Swann, 57, may not have technique to burn like Mr. Pisarenko. But he is an accomplished and resourceful pianist who obviously loves playing his instrument, sharing music with audiences and talking about the pieces he has chosen, something he does with avuncular charm and insight.

I was eager to hear Mr. Pisarenko, who took first prize last year in the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Utrecht, the Netherlands. His account of Liszt’s Polonaise No. 2 emerged with punchy rhythmic vitality and, when this evocation of a Polish dance turns unexpectedly frenzied, with demonic fervor. And it was refreshing to hear Mr. Pisarenko’s serious-minded performance of Liszt’s exuberant Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. In his hands the spiraling passagework, thick with pungent cluster chords, anticipated the harmonies of a much-later Hungarian master, Gyorgy Ligeti.

Still, it was hard not to worry a little about this immensely gifted pianist. His program bio stated, almost as a point of pride, that starting the morning after his victory in the Liszt Competition, Mr. Pisarenko began an extensive international touring schedule. The pace seems not to have let up. Does he have opportunities to work with mentors, to mature, to participate in a summer chamber music festival or even to take time off?

What a difference from Mr. Swann’s recital. When the affable Mr. Swann appeared onstage, he could hardly wait, it seemed, to tell us about the philosophical resonances of the pieces he had selected. The fitful, searching “Emerson” movement from the “Concord” Sonata is Ives’s musical description of a philosophical state of mind, Mr. Swann said, whereas Liszt’s B minor Sonata, inspired by Goethe’s “Faust,” is a metaphorical depiction of a great philosophical work. But Beethoven’s Sonata No. 32, his last, Mr. Swann suggested, is “itself philosophical.”

Mr. Swann’s account of the daunting Liszt sonata lacked some virtuosic dazzle and sonic power. He somewhat mangled a few passages of octave outbursts and leaping chords. And his fingers got a little tangled in the fugal episode in the first movement of the Beethoven sonata.

Still, he played all three works with musical authority and pianistic flair. During each performance I kept thinking about how astonishing these pieces are. If a pianist can convey this, he is a master in the ways that matter most.

As summer closes, I like to take a look back and savor the summer’s highlights. I’m a ’summer person’ so I have to say goodbye to every summer. Take a deep breath and savor, so I’ll never forget.

There’s no arts event in New York I enjoy more than the Summer Keyboard Festival at Mannes School for Music, that is, the International Keyboard Institute & Festival (ikif.org) Gracing the last two weeks of every July, IKIF hosts a torrent of music activity–piano recitals, master classes, and the Dorothy MacKenzie Piano competition. All wonderful enough, but it’s the social energy among piano music lovers that sets IKIF apart for me. Festival-goers are the welcome guests of arts impresario Jerome Rose and Festival Director Julie Kedersha. International means exactly that. All around the lobby and concert hall, old friends from Russia (Israel, China, Korea …) exclaim in delight as they run into each other for the first time in ages. You’re likely to run into friends of your own, and meeting new friends is as easy as asking ‘what did you think of the Beethoven?’ Everyone there loves the piano repertoire. ‘I heard Serkin play that piece . . . Yes, yes, Berman does it best.’ And everyone has an opinion: ‘The largo was a little too largo.’

Pianists say how much it energizes them to play for an audience that listens closely. The atmospheric charge of focused listening is palpable in the concert hall at IKIF. Believe me, no one here falls asleep in the slow movement. The audience knows the repertoire intimately; many have played the pieces themselves. I’d bet a quarter of the audience are master level students or performing pianists. Look around the room, there’s Hamelin, there’s Kobrin, there’s Leslie Howard. There’s Dubal, there’s Shakin, there’s Leyatov. And when something truly special happens — like Ukrainian Mykola Suk staking a daredevil’s claim on the Liszt Sonata — it’s the talk of the Festival for days. Might I add that something special happens often at the Keyboard Institute.

There’s a touch of The Magnificent Seven about Mannes. Night after night, another world class virtuoso rolls into town and throws down at the keyboard. One night the Appassionata, the next night, Four Chopin Ballades, the next the Schumann Carnival. Momentum and excitement build from one night to next, and there always seems more to come.

Then there are the Master Classes at the Keyboard Institute. Running all day, every day, our next generation of grand prize winners and Alice Tully debutantes take intense instruction from the Institute faculty and festival artists. So how’s this for excellent? Van Cliburn gold medalist Alexander Kobrin teaching the Rachmaninov 2nd Sonata to a brilliant Russian prodigy, for whom the technical demands of the piece are less than an afterthought. (Master and student were kind enough to conduct the lesson in English for my benefit.) I heard Mykola Suk teach the Liszt Sonata before exemplifying his insights in his own revolutionary performance. But two summers ago it was the same, Chinese Master Fou T’song illuminating Mozart’s Rondo in A Minor phrase by phrase, after performing the masterpiece in his recital–simply delicious. Then its Jerome Rose coaxing a young competition medalist, who plays her Chopin Sonata ‘too perfectly’, to the next level of artistry. And as these developing stars debut at Lincoln Center in a few years–be assured, they have and they will–you can say you heard them in the Master Class at Mannes.

I’ve come to appreciate very much the contributions of artists like Jerry Rose, Julie Kedersha, David Dubal, and so many others who create events that bring music lovers together to share our passions. There’s always a concert to go to, but arts events like IKIF, with that extra dimension of musical community, especially enrich my enjoyment of the masterworks we cherish.

IKIF was founded by Jerome Rose...and he invites a slew of his fellow pianists, for master classes, recitals, and other events. One of his invitees was Menahem Pressler, long of the Beaux Arts Trio...Pressler's general mastery was unquestionable; and so was his extraordinary love of music. Jerry Rose once said to him, "Menahem, you love playing so much, you should pay me to listen to you."

Another invitee was Philippe Entremont, the French star...he can still play, as he proved at the Mannes School...Entremont was his elegant, tasteful, very musical self - particularly in the French rep (Debusssy, Ravel).

The last recital was given by a sort of Frenchman - Marc-Andre Hamelin, of Montreal. The biggest piece on his Mannes program was the "Concord" Sonata of Ives. This is a vast, sprawling, quirky work, and Hamelin played it with technical brilliance and idiomatic understanding.

In the 1950s, when the French pianist Philippe Entremont emerged on the international scene, he was hailed as a distinctive artist who combined Old World French refinement and youthful virtuosity. His recordings of concertos by Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saëns and Ravel were big sellers.

In the 1970s Mr. Entremont shifted his focus to conducting, taking posts with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra (for nearly 30 years) and the New Orleans Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. Opinion was divided about his conducting. I recall some quite ineffective concerts he presented with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra during the 1980s, when his work both as conductor and pianist, leading Mozart concertos from the keyboard, was mannered, listless and overly plush.

Now 74, Mr. Entremont gave a piano recital at Mannes College the New School for Music on Wednesday evening as part of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival. Jerome Rose, who directs this annual event, has made a point of including veteran artists who have been out of the loop for a while. The auditorium was packed, evidence of the regard Mr. Entremont built up as a pianist during a long career.

He opened the program with Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A (K. 331), the piece that ends with the “Turkish Rondo,” a staple of the student pianist’s repertory. As Mr. Entremont began the main theme of the first movement, some fudged passages and blurry pedaling seemed worrisome signs. But he soon settled down and played with poise and sensitivity. By taking his time, making the most of each lyrical turn of phrase and observing all the structural repeats, Mr. Entremont had this single movement, a theme and variations, seeming like a significant 15-minute piece unto itself. The Menuetto was hardy and jocular. He played the rondo with dash, delicacy and whiplash articulation of the rolled left-hand chords that evoke the Turkish drums and cymbals.

Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata might not be the wisest choice for Mr. Entremont, given his diminished technical resources at this stage of his career. His finger work, for the most part, was nimble and clear, but leaps and bursts of fortissimo chords gave him trouble. This was a rather atmospheric account of music usually mined for its rhythmic intensity and sudden dynamic contrasts.

The all-French second half offered works by Debussy and Ravel. There were curious moments at which Mr. Entremont’s playing of surging passages in Debussy’s “Images,” Book 1, especially the middle section of “Reflets Dans l’Eau,” turned clangorous and steely. But mostly he played with an ear for intriguing inner voices and hazy colorings, as well as effortless glissandos in his exuberant account of Debussy’s suite “Pour le Piano.”

If a phrase here and there was muffed in Mr. Entremont’s performance of Ravel’s finger-twisting “Alborada del Gracioso,” it was enjoyable to hear him cutting loose to relish the piece’s snappy dance rhythms and sultry harmonies.

For an encore, Mr. Entremont played Chopin’s Polonaise in C sharp minor, conveying both the burly vigor and the ruminative tenderness of this mercurial work.

To give you an idea of how highly Yuan Sheng is regarded, let me begin by saying that, at the end of his recital, Harris Goldsmith and I were agreed that he can play anything. We just had not come to a complete understanding on whether it's because of his wonderful technique, or his excellent musicianship.

I had heard Yuan Sheng, who studied both in China and in this country, and now teaches at Beijing University, twice before. I was particularly looking forward to hearing him play Bach again, and was not disappointed.

Yuan Sheng makes one believe that Bach actually wrote these works for the modern piano, so "just right" do his interpretations sound. There is thought and meaning behind every note, and a consistently beautiful tone. The Prelude and Fugue were surprisingly dramatic, and the Partita, though it included every repeat, never seemed too long, because he always knew to change the volume, or the nuance, or SOMETHING in the repeats. The audience responded with exceptional enthusiasm at the end of this large work.

One of the things I noticed this evening was the extent of his dynamic range. It's not unusual for pianists to enjoy playing LOUD, but not many play so softly and so expressively at the soft end of a tonal palette.

A rousing performance of the Chopin Barcarolle was followed by two very interesting, and contrasting works by composer Ping Gao, who was born in 1970. Just A Moment was quite lovely, and had as a motif something that sounded like a tone cluster in which the notes are played separately, not together.

Night Alley was longer, and more dramatic. Its main motif sounded like a Morse Code signal, which gets elaborated upon. However, many other things also come in during the course of this work, including fragments of a Chopin Waltz, which, played at the very low dynamic level he uses so well, seemed like a delusion at first.

La Valse, which concluded the official program, was a tour de force, with, at different times, charm, elegance, and terrific power. A standing ovation marked its conclusion.

But Mr Sheng wasn't finished. Two encores followed.

The first was the Poeme, Op. 32, No. 1 of Scriabin, and it was another highlight of the evening. At times simple, at other times psychedelic, but always wondrous and tonally gorgeous I couldn't imagine this piece being played any better.

Mr. Sheng ended the concert with a piece Josef Hofmann was known for playing, Moszkowski's Spanish Caprice. An already fearsome piece, featuring interlocking chords and complicated repeated note sections, he played it at top speed, and with great flair.

Jeffrey Swann is sometimes billed on his recital programs as both pianist and lecturer, but even when he is billed as merely a pianist, as he was on Thursday evening, he does a good deal of talking between pieces. Lecturing is something performers need to think about seriously before embracing: too much chattiness can try an audience’s patience if the musician doesn’t have the talent for it or hasn’t prepared.

Mr. Swann doesn’t have that problem, partly because he assembles his programs imaginatively, often with an extramusical theme that connects seemingly disparate works, but also because his comments, however lengthy, are packed with both obscure and commonplace information and are clearly prepared carefully, even though they give the impression of being off the cuff.

Mr. Swann’s program on Thursday, an installment of the International Keyboard Institute & Festival at Mannes College the New School for Music, was called “Music of Ghost Stories, the Fantastic, the Bizarre” and looked at the ways composers grappled with the otherworldly, mostly of the demonic variety that captured the imaginations of 19th-century authors and composers.

He began with a perfect example: Schubert’s “Erlkönig,” performed here in Liszt’s solo piano arrangement. In Schubert’s vocal version, the macabre text and the darkly rippling piano line share the work of evoking horror, but Liszt’s transcription creates the terrifying atmosphere on its own, even without the tale of death pursuing a sick child as his father tries to carry him to safety. Mr. Swann’s forceful, sharply accented reading brought its own electricity to the score.

Two less frequently heard Liszt works — the thunderous “Unstern!” and the light-textured “Mephisto Polka” — were of only modest interest but were reminders of Mr. Swann’s technical versatility. That quality had an ample workout in Schumann’s “Kreisleriana,” an eight-movement portrait of a musical eccentric by a composer who could certainly empathize. Mr. Swann avoided overstating the contrasts between extroverted, speed-demon passages and quieter, ruminative ones, letting Schumann’s writing take its own weird twists. But in the final movement — Schumann’s evocation of a descent into madness — Mr. Swann wisely abandoned restraint.

After the intermission, he played another rarity, Smetana’s “Macbeth and the Witches,” a study in contrasts: the witches cavort wildly, painted in almost Impressionist harmonies, with interruptions for occasional glimpses of Macbeth, a distant, saturnine silhouette. Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit” closed the program, its three panels — the chromatic shimmering of Ondine, the water sprite; the eerie swinging of the hanged corpse in “Le Gibet”; and the zesty, hard-driven depiction of the goblin Scarbo — each illuminated by the clarity and virtuosity of Mr. Swann’s nuanced interpretive style.

By any measure, the International Keyboard Institute & Festival is the grandest offering in the procession of hybrid seminars and concert series that make up the summer schedule at Mannes College the New School for Music. It runs two weeks, more then twice the length of the other institutes. Its daily schedule is packed with master classes (four most days) and concerts (two every evening), as well as a competition.

This year’s installment began on Sunday evening with a recital by Jerome Rose, the institute’s founder and director. Mr. Rose is a pianist who never met a triple forte he didn’t like or couldn’t make just a bit more thunderous, and he favors repertory that rewards this preference.

Why not? He has the fingers, the power and the sense of color and drama to present the barnstormers of the Romantic repertory in a fiery light. At times during his account of Liszt’s “Mephisto Waltz” No. 1, which closed his program, the ambient haze produced by strings of fortissimo chords suggested the sulfurous cloud that Liszt might have imagined surrounding his protagonist.

That isn’t to say that muscularity and outsize gesture were all Mr. Rose had in his arsenal. The gentler sections of Schumann’s “Humoreske,” if never quite supple, were elastic enough to touch on Schumann’s tender side, if only briefly between more impetuous outbursts. Parts of Beethoven’s Sonata in A flat (Op. 110) were enlivened by phrasing that suggested an almost improvisatory ebb and flow, and in the work’s closing fugue, clarity and proportion were as crucial to Mr. Rose’s high-energy reading as tension and drive.

Other comparatively graceful moments took root in the descriptive passages of Liszt’s “Vallée d’Obermann” and the more meditative strands of his “Sonetto 47 del Petrarca.” But these moments seemed not to engage Mr. Rose nearly as much as the feistier, flashier ones, and in retrospect, most seemed less like poetry than like glorified placeholders: instances of contrasting calm between waves of forceful, broad-boned piano sound. Those waves could be thrilling in a purely visceral way, particularly in the Liszt works. But it was hard not to feel the lack of something more enduring.

To the ardent pianophiles who flock to the International Keyboard Institute & Festival at Mannes College the New School for Music every summer, the Canadian virtuoso Marc-André Hamelin is royalty. Never mind that he played in New York most recently in late March, or that he will make his debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival next week. The line of patrons waiting to hear him in the Mannes Concert Hall on Saturday extended down a staircase, across the lobby and through a locker-lined hallway.

The concert began with two Haydn sonatas featured on a delectable recording Mr. Hamelin recently issued on the Hyperion label. The precision and clarity he brought to the brisk outer movements of the Sonata No. 23 in F suited the music’s scampering gait; in between came an exquisitely molded adagio, during which time seemed to stand still. Mr. Hamelin’s phrasing in the Sonata No. 41 in B flat underscored the bold peculiarity of Haydn’s syncopated rhythms and unpredictable melodies.

“Sonata in a State of Jazz,” composed by the French pianist Alexis Weissenberg in 1982, offered formidable Cubist allusions to popular forms. A tartly dissonant tango in three-quarter time was punctuated with glimmers of nostalgic melody; a spiky Charleston emphasized sharp-edged rhythms. Dense harmonies in a blues-inspired movement suggested a young Schoenberg brooding over the keys in an after-hours Harlem joint, while complex lines in the closing samba section swayed like a drunken mathematician.

An account of Chopin’s Barcarolle, Op. 60, was a thing of breathtaking beauty, every texture and transition sensitively judged. But despite a tender introduction and passionate conclusion, some passages in the Ballade No. 3 sounded starched and curt.

Mr. Hamelin performed two works of his own devising. The Etude No. 8, “Erlkönig,” was a vivid, Lisztian setting of a Goethe poem. (In his introductory comments Mr. Hamelin noted that the melody closely adhered to the German verse; a shame that printed texts were not provided.) The Etude No. 7 was a skillful arrangement for left hand of Tchaikovsky’s “Lullaby.”

Godowsky’s Symphonic Metamorphoses on Johann Strauss Jr.’s “Wine, Women and Song” concluded the program on a note of flamboyant excess. Far more charming — and far gentler to its source — was Mr. Hamelin’s sole encore: “En Avril à Paris,” a selection from the obscure Belgian album “Mr. Nobody Plays Trenet.” The Trenet in question, of course, was the French singer Charles. And Mr. Nobody? That turned out to be Mr. Weissenberg.

The scene at Mannes College the New School for Music on Friday night was one of mild urgency, if not exactly chaos. The occasion was a recital by the Russian pianist Olga Kern, presented by the school’s invaluable International Keyboard Institute & Festival. Near the appointed hour the Mannes Concert Hall was filled to near capacity. But a sizable number of would-be patrons lingered in the lobby, hoping to be squeezed in.

The festival’s chief attraction is a series of evening concerts that allow the public to hear pianists in a room large enough to hold some 300 patrons yet intimate enough to qualify as a chamber-music setting. Demand increases sharply when a bona fide star is on hand; a recital by the Canadian virtuoso Marc-André Hamelin scheduled for Saturday sold out quickly. To judge by the mild frenzy, Ms. Kern, a gold medalist at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, is becoming that kind of star.

She is undeniably an exciting player despite her taciturn stage presence. She demonstrated abundant power in Chopin’s Sonata No. 2, at times threatening to fly off the rails during the opening movement. The opening of the scherzo lacked clarity, but there was a supple beauty in the way she lingered over the movement’s wistful second subject; it was less a waltz than a narcotic recollection of one. The dolorous Funeral March was well judged; the finale, a rousing but indistinct blur.

Chopin’s Bolero in C (Op. 19) was a marvel of gamboling rhythms and precise articulation. But Ms. Kern’s phrasing in the Polonaise in A flat (Op. 53) seemed choppy and mannered, even at the breakneck tempos she chose.

A change of gowns for the second half elicited a gasp of pleasure from audience members. Ms. Kern brought a suitably lyrical touch to Rachmaninoff’s Sonata No. 2, including gracious descending cascades in the opening allegro agitato. What was missing was a sense of continuity; the work sounded like a series of disconnected episodes and bone-rattling climaxes. Still, it drew lusty shouts of approval.

Ms. Kern was at her best in Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, here outfitted with a tricky Rachmaninoff cadenza. Freed of rhetorical demands, her playing danced and stomped. She offered three encores: an elegant Scarlatti Sonata in D minor (K. 9), Rachmaninoff’s flashy transcription of the gopak from Mussorgsky’s “Sorochintsy Fair,” and Moritz Moszkowski’s scintillating étude “Sparks.” Each showed an amiability that had been in short supply during the main event.

Writing a history of 20th-century music is best done by one of those Hindu gods with many arms. Too much happened at the same time. All of it different.

Talking and playing the piano Tuesday night at Mannes College the New School for Music, Jeffrey Swann offered six composers, none of whose music really had much to say to any music around it. The concert was part of the International Keyboard Institute & Festival, an annual convocation of performing, teaching and lecturing.

Mr. Swann brought along the Berg Sonata and its umbilical connections to Wagner, the Stravinsky Sonata with its cool appraisal of Baroque bounce and ornament, and excerpts from Hindemith’s ardent, erudite and yet curiously businesslike “Ludus Tonalis.” After intermission came gee-whiz theatrics from the first volume of George Crumb’s “Makrokosmos,” David Del Tredici’s strange yet somehow touching retreat to the Chopin of the 1840s and the unclassifiable beauties of Ligeti’s Etudes for Piano, here two examples from Book I.

As a pianist Mr. Swann is a very satisfactory musical polyglot. He also speaks well about historical contexts, although given his audience of students and professionals he was probably talking to the already initiated. He feels the melodic tensions of the Berg, and where others find a smaller, more intimate piece, he emphasizes the Sonata’s grandness. Touching too was how touched Mr. Swann himself was by the lyrical impulse that Hindemith insists on, even in the midst of his highly organized writing.

Mr. Swann seemed to have a good time with Mr. Crumb’s extracurricular strummings inside the body of the piano and his spoken and shouted bits of texts. An important wing of 20th-century music was its community of inventors, entrusted with finding new instruments and new applications of old ones. If patents for innovative sonorities existed, Mr. Crumb would hold a few of them.

Mr. Del Tredici’s “Virtuoso Alice” is well described by its title, with great flurries of scales and arpeggios commenting on sweetly melodic music. At the end came Ligeti’s “Arc-en-ciel” and “Automne à Varsovie,” their layers of irreconcilable time schemes making this music a pleasure for the ear and a nightmare for the performer. Mr. Swann dealt very well with them.

Unusual physical skills at the piano make good things happen, but they function as stigmas as well. The start of Marc-André Hamelin’s public career carried with it a reputation for extraordinary fluency, a technique that could bring Balakirev’s “Islamey,” Albéniz’s “Iberia” and other horrific tests of virtuosity to their knees. Maybe Mr. Hamelin’s musical mind and heart have emerged from behind that blur of flying fingers and crashing octaves. Maybe they were there all the time, and we just didn’t pay enough attention.

Mr. Hamelin’s appearance on Saturday at Mannes College indulged his taste for the big and the florid (Paul Dukas’s E-flat minor sonata) but also returned to one of the repertory’s sacred gospels, the Schubert B-flat sonata from the composer’s last year. This was all part of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, which finished yesterday. The college’s modest upstairs auditorium was packed with students of the instrument young and old.

Dukas lived his musical life alongside Ravel and Debussy but did not write a great deal, occupying his time early on with music criticism and later with academia. What survives in memory 71 years after his death are the vocal and instrumental pieces, so the piano sonata from the turn of the 20th century arrived on Saturday as a minor revelation to many. Its four movements are products of a culture that had more time, more love of rhetoric, and a patience to sit back and to absorb it.

The heart then was fixed perhaps more prominently on the sleeve, and with no microphones to be had, the loud voice was a medium of choice. The piece is filled with little surprises: unexpected changes of key, sudden loud-soft shifts and, at the end of the Scherzo movement, a particularly interesting series of comic doodles and silences.

Elsewhere there are a lot of notes, all handily digested by Mr. Hamelin. It was a fine opportunity to hear a piece other pianists don’t play, but I wonder how many in the audience would jump at the chance to repeat the experience. There is the hint of a swayback in this long, effusive and ambling war horse. Maybe if we had more time, maybe if we were less in a hurry. …

In 1828 the Schubert sonata sat on a line separating the Classical tradition of Mozart and the open Romantic abandon about to be let out into the world. Performers can go either way and do it legitimately.

Mr. Hamelin chose to look ahead, with generously formed phrases, tempos unafraid to bend and contract, big modern-piano effects and rhetorical silences. Here was virtuosity well used: a performance as scrupulous and considered as it was deeply felt.

One of the less-mentioned wonders of this wondrous piece is not the first movement or the second, but the gap between the two. To come unwarned upon the C-sharp minor chord that begins the Andante, and to do so with the lingering B-flatness of the first movement still in the ear, adds a dimension of mystery like no other I can think of.

Fou Ts’ong, a British pianist by way of Shanghai, was something of an international presence 40 years ago. We hear less of him on this side of the Atlantic, but he is still active as a player and competition jurist, and he showed up at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at the Mannes College on Tuesday night. At 72, Mr. Fou commands a technique that is restrained but functioning. Most of his program was chosen for its musical interest rather than its technical challenge, this being as much by necessity as by good taste. Chopin’s F-minor Ballade at the end sounded more like laborious negotiation than free-flying virtuosity. He was more interesting in Haydn’s A-flat minor Sonata, music with a surprise around every corner, and in Mozart’s Fantasy in D minor (K. 397), operatic in declamation but with physical difficulties well within the reach of a reasonably gifted child.

Mr. Fou’s playing has characteristics of an older point of view, one that favors freedom over scrupulosity and coherence. A collection of Chopin mazurkas was improvisatory in style, and sometimes in fact. Mr. Fou likes to separate the hands slightly for melodic emphasis in the old-fashioned way, and he always has time to draw out phrases and create pregnant silences.

His tendency to sever Chopin’s linear writing in midflow and then leave it to dangle in musical space borders on the eccentric. The Mozart group, which included the Baroque-like Gigue in G and the great Rondo in A minor, worked better by being a little less free. In Chopin’s Berceuse Mr. Fou tried assiduously to disguise the monotony of the left-hand rhythm, when perhaps monotony was what Chopin intended.

One of the most awestruck fans of the jazz pianist Art Tatum was the classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz, who heard the nearly blind Tatum play live in New York jazz clubs and collected his records. Like Duke Ellington and Oscar Peterson, Horowitz was inspired and intimidated by the inventiveness and sheer virtuosity of Tatum’s playing: the intricate rhythmic riffs, the constantly shifting harmony, the hypercharged keyboard-sweeping runs. “I wish I had a left hand like Art Tatum’s,” Horowitz once said.

Tatum, who died in 1956 at 47, has another admirer from classical music in the pianist Steven Mayer, who has transcribed by ear, note for note, numerous Tatum improvisations and recorded them to acclaim on a Naxos Classical release. On Tuesday at Mannes College of Music in Manhattan, Mr. Mayer concluded a varied recital program, part of the school’s two-week International Keyboard Institute and Festival, with three of his transcribed Tatum solos.

Though you can question the point of trying to replicate Tatum’s ingenious improvisations, you have to be impressed by Mr. Mayer’s devotion to the music and his technically brilliant playing. Actually, Mr. Mayer adds his own touches to Tatum’s solos. Still, his renditions are amazing facsimiles. Tatum took the Harlem stride style of Fats Waller and reinvented it, pushing it harmonically, polyphonically and pianistically beyond anything imagined.

Yet, though Tatum sometimes repeated his solos almost exactly in different performances, the pieces emerged as improvisations and always sounded fresh. For all the ferocity of his playing, there was a devil-may-care quality to his style, a seemingly impossible mix of intensity and impishness. Though Mr. Mayer plays Tatum with admirable panache, inevitably his performances sounded somewhat practiced and dutiful.

Mr. Mayer is a musician with wide-ranging interests who has played standard concerto repertory with major international orchestras. He began this recital with a boldly expressive account of Mozart’s Rondo in A minor, followed by a rhapsodic performance of Schumann’s early Sonata in F sharp minor, a technically awkward, sometimes intractable yet noble, haunting and fantastical work that is too seldom heard.

He was at his best in Ives’s “Celestial Railroad,” an astounding essay in color, texture and energy that sounded more radical than ever in Mr. Mayer’s compelling performance. He also gave engaging accounts of two works by Gottschalk and, as a warm-up to the Tatum, more of his transcriptions of early jazz piano pieces: James P. Johnson’s “Blueberry Rhyme” and Jelly Roll Morton’s “Frances.”

It’s reassuring to see classical pianists of Mr. Mayer’s accomplishment thinking outside the box. Still, even Horowitz, a renowned transcriber, never took on Tatum.

The International Keyboard Institute and Festival is the biggest of Mannes College’s back-to-back schedule of summer programs. It runs for two full weeks, with master classes, lectures, demonstrations and recitals open to the public every day from 9 a.m. to about 10 p.m.

Audiences are usually packed more tightly into Mannes’s concert hall for the keyboard event than for the college’s other festivals (which examine Beethoven, contemporary music and the classical guitar). There is even an official T-shirt (for $20) in the lobby.

Jerome Rose, the festival’s founder and director, gave the opening recital on Sunday evening in a program calibrated to his strengths, which include the sonic heft, broad gestures and grand scale of Romanticism.

Even so, Mr. Rose began with two works from outside the Romantic repertory, which isn’t to say that he recognized such a distinction. He played Mozart’s Sonata in C minor (K. 457) as a full-fledged Romantic score with a big, strong tone that made its textures sound thicker than they are. With that tonal weight established, proportions of all kinds inevitably change. So while Mr. Rose’s dynamics were essentially those of the score, their effects was magnified to Lisztian proportions.

Paul Schoenfield’s “Intermezzo” (2002) is a graceful, slowly building rumination in a language so conservative that it could almost pass as a lost Chopin work. That was how Mr. Rose played it, and it was an approach that worked once you accepted that Mr. Schoenfield, always an eclectic composer, was intent on pursuing an unequivocally nostalgic notion here.

Mr. Rose closed the first half of the program with a thundering account of Schumann’s G minor Sonata (Op. 22) that put the music’s audacious outbursts into high relief, but didn’t skimp on its gentler qualities, like the singing melody line in the Adagio. Similar qualities — with a greater emphasis on poetry and lilting themes than on thunder, though there was some of that as well — enlivened the four Chopin Ballades, which Mr. Rose played after the intermission.

Every generation has its "last Romantic," a pianist who captures, to an extraordinary degree, the windswept spirit of the late 19th-century Lisztian camp. Josef Hofmann was the first last Romantic, bringing into the 1930s and '40s the wisdom of the previous century. A decade later, Vladimir Horowitz followed suit. The 1960s brought Artur Rubinstein, who learned from masters who learned from masters of the original stripe. And in more modern times, the last Romantic was the cult figure Shura Cherkassky.

Jerome Rose might be considered the last Romantic of our own age. A Liszt specialist, he was known in his youth as a formidable advocate for the golden age's most virtuosic piano music. Later, he became a scholar and eventually founded the annual International Keyboard Institute & Festival at the Mannes College of Music. The festival, which features no less than 28 concerts over two weeks, opened Sunday evening with a recitalist none other than Mr. Rose himself.

His appearance did not go unnoticed: The hall was bursting. Fans sat on the floor, stood at the back, even perched cross-legged atop some of the spare pianos in the room. All was in place for a superb recital. But the recitalist started off on the wrong foot. The leonine Mr. Rose presented the opening work, Mozart's Sonata in C minor, K. 457, as if it were written by some minor acolyte or epigone of Liszt. Stylistically anachronistic, the performance was also surprisingly inaccurate: Entire passages were seemingly uttered extemporaneously and fingered cavalierly. I feared it was to be a bumpy night.

Thankfully, Mr. Rose righted the ship immediately thereafter. With the following work, the world premiere of "Intermezzo" by Paul Schoenfield, the pianist employed both printed music and a page-turner, and appeared to reproduce the score, even the occasional minor second that rendered this otherwise melodious music discordant, faithfully.

Once Mr.Rose plunged headlong into the Romantic, he was in steady waters. Curiously, there appeared to be a direct ratio between the degree of technical difficulty and Mr. Rose's facilities with a particular piece. This unique recitalist soundly traversed Robert Schumann's notoriously devilish Sonata in G minor, Op. 22. He made child's play of many of its most difficult passages, producing a limpid and powerfully drawn rendition.

For better or worse, everything about Mr. Rose — his aesthetic, his style, and his sporadic shortcomings of dexterity — came together for a memorable reading of Chopin's Four Ballades. Yes, all four were played in order, even though the composer never intended for them to be offered as such. How Mr. Rose chose to perform these magnificent essays will certainly create controversy, and that is a good thing for music that depends so much on its frisson. He insisted on living on the edge throughout, creating generous slathers of rubato, heart-stopping pauses, big dynamic contrasts, and runs and trills begun just slightly after their downbeat.

If hearing all the notes in their proper place is your cup of tea, then you will probably not care much for Jerome Rose. But if the tingling sensation of the unexpected in your spine is the reason you come to hear such emotional music, then you could do much worse than a program by this necromancer who celebrates the Romantic pianist as the kissing cousin of that other emerging artist of the 19th century, the circus performer. For me, these daring experiments were mighty as a rose.