Tag Archives: pianist

RNS/Ólafsson live at the Glasshouse review – quite possibly the best pianist in the world right now
8
Feb

Beethoven’s flamboyant Emperor concerto was an odd choice for this master of pianistic introspection, but Ólafsson nonetheless proved his world class status following a typically daring and dynamic first half from Sousa’s Royal Northern Sinfonia.

It’s a chilly Wednesday night at St. James’ Park, and the music is a heady mix of Hey Jude, a Wembley-themed Que Sera, Sera and a live rendition of Newcastle United’s own gloriously cheesy anthem Going Home. It’s odd to think that amongst the thousands of fans twirling their scarves in the stands one of Europe’s foremost concert pianists, a fresh United scarf draped over his chic turtleneck. What would Víkingur Ólafsson, a man known for his heartfelt and studied renditions of obscure Bach organ works, make of the wilfully dated sax melody and the thumping 80s drum groove?

Almost unbelievably, it turns out the Icelandic piano sensation wasn’t just there out of curiosity. In fact, he’s been a fan since he was a child, boldly going against the consensus of his Reykjavík schoolmates by picking Newcastle over Manchester United. After this 40-minute Beethoven recital in Gateshead, he recounts the wild events of the previous night’s victorious cup tie, provoking chuckles from the audience as he – dressed in a pristine suit and hair neatly gelled in position like a lovable teachers’ pet – struggles to recall the words “howay the lads”. “I originally picked Newcastle because they played exciting football,” he remarks before reeling off several names from Newcastle teams of yore, as if to prove his true allegiance. “But now I realise it’s because they are black and white, like the piano keys.”

It is a bizarre footnote that somewhat explains Ólafsson’s unlikely appearance in Gateshead. The Glasshouse is undoubtedly one of the finest concert halls in the North but, even for them, getting Ólafsson is something of a scheduling coup – the pianist won a Grammy just days ago for his superb recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which is generally considered as one of the finest readings of that legendary suite of music. Next week he has a blockbuster series of recitals with fellow piano god Yuja Wang in the hallowed concert halls of Toronto and New York. Consequently, the atmosphere in a packed Glasshouse is simply electric. The lady next to me can’t help but burst into conversation about Ólafsson, telling me about his “magical” Prom last summer, the majesty of his Bach organ transcriptions and, most giddily, that “he was on Petroc this morning!” If BBC Radio 3’s silken-voiced presenter approved, then it seemed certain we were in for a classic concert.

First, though, we had the first half of the programme to get through. Fortunately, resident conductor Dinis Sousa is not one for adding crowd-pleasing filler to his concerts. He continued his noble work of promoting contemporary classical music with an opening rendition of Ciel d’hiver, the 2013 piece from recently departed composer Kaija Saariaho. The Finn was known for her fascination with light in all its subtleties, and it was the eerie grey of a dusky winter sky that was most clearly evoked here through Charlotte Ashton’s icy opening flute solo. Later, strings slid from note to note unnervingly, and bubbling harp glissandi gave way to alarming rushes of cymbals. The programme notes suggested Ciel d’hiver would be a beautiful experience, but this was more of an orchestral horror film, vividly portrayed by an RNS demonstrating their fine attention to detail, even in avant garde, pulse-free pieces like this one.

It was a fitting warm up for the following piece, Bartók’s masterwork Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, which is known for its inclusion during a particularly unsettling sequence in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. In Gateshead, this was a reminder of why classical music is best enjoyed live – two groups of strings players sat directly opposite each other, and their battling, overlapping melodies made for a thrilling stereo experience. It culminated in the electrifying Allegro molto duel, each section leaning forwards as they dug their bows into the strings like fencers going in for a lunge. The strings joined forces for a jagged and impressively synchronised pizzicato passage, whilst pianist Benjamin Powell’s agitated exchanges with Fionnuala Ward’s celesta (essentially a piano that strikes steel plates instead of strings) proved that the piano, at its heart, is in fact a percussion instrument. Dinis Sousa’s conducting was uncharacteristically rigid throughout, and rightly so: this is a claustrophobic piece of music – a symphony in a straitjacket, albeit a straitjacket from which it is desperately trying to escape.

The choice of Beethoven’s Emperor piano concerto for Ólafsson’s visit to Tyneside was mysterious. The programme had originally listed Brahms’ second piano concerto as the headline piece (a convenient change for me, since I’d already seen Sunwook Kim‘s businesslike rendition of that one in 2023). One concertgoer I ended up asking about the switch to Beethoven said it was something to do with Ólafsson’s health concerns, but this concerto, a piece oozing with flair and self-confidence typical of late-era Beethoven, hardly seemed like an easy cop-out for the pianist.

Even so, perhaps for Ólafsson Emperor really is a cakewalk. It certainly seemed that way as he delved into the fiendish technical passages that open the concerto, sat back on the stool as if even he was stunned by the acrobatic feats his fingers were pulling off. This sort of musical showmanship is somewhat unchartered territory for Ólafsson, who in 2023 distinguished himself as a Bach specialist when he embarked on playing the Goldberg Variations for 88 concerts in a row in a world tour that took in every continent bar Antarctica. He’s adept at drawing out the hidden inner melodies of Bach’s knotty fugues, as well as tricky task of locating the deep springs of human emotion buried beneath the composer’s cold mathematical genius. Setting him to work at some relatively uncomplicated Beethoven then – one clear refrain per movement, repeated over and over like a pop song – felt a bit like taking a Ferrari to work.

Nonetheless, there was never a sense of superiority about Ólafsson’s impeccable playing, giving the opening movement’s radiant refrain all the vigour it deserved, then sitting back during the breaks and eagerly watching his melodies take flight in the violins around him, clearly delighted by the results. Emperor‘s dominant emotion is simple and persistent joy, although Ólafsson still found room for brief moments of reflection towards the end of the first movement, easing off on tempo momentarily before a delightful final flourish of quicksilver scales.

It was the slow middle movement where Ólafsson seemed most at home. Beethoven’s tranquil theme here is often likened to a hymn, but to me it sounds starkly contemporary, and even pop-y (is there a through line from Beethoven’s steadily rising refrain to the chorus of Becky Hill’s pop hit Remember?). In Gateshead, Ólafsson’s elegant piano melodies were superbly matched by Sousa’s RNS, the strings sounding delectable over the theme’s hushed rise and fall.

The eventual third movement, foreshadowed with subtlety by Ólafsson a few bars earlier, was pure elation. The bombastic refrain looked like terrific fun to play on piano, and Ólafsson did well to ensure even the very loud passages remained light-footed and playful. For a studious-looking pianist whose discography leans towards the austere, this was a reminder that he is still not one to take himself too seriously. A final symphonic prank from Beethoven – the dummy of a quiet ending on piano, followed by a blast of conclusive chords from the orchestra – cued five straight minutes of rapturous applause.

It took the insistence of Ólafsson himself for the applause to finally abate. After his charming chat about Newcastle United, the pianist had one last surprise in store: an encore of Jean-Phillippe Rameau’s The Arts and the Hours, dedicated to the late concert pianist and former RNS director Lars Vogt, who had in fact chosen this specific Steinway grand piano for the Glasshouse. The piece – a devastating tapestry of falling melodies and mellow harmonies – was the sort of music that words could never do justice to. The piece’s title and its dedication to Vogt made it a deeply moving meditation on the mortality of artists and the immortality of their art. This was Ólafsson at his most extraordinary; there can be few people in the world this good at communicating emotion so powerfully. Ólafsson had been a close friend of Vogt, and shared with us a text he received from Vogt just days before his death in 2022. The message was simple, but it haunted me all the way home after this scintillating night of music: “Don’t ever take the music for granted.”

RNS/Kim live at the Glasshouse review – music fizzing with tension
1
Dec

Playing to a half-capacity Glasshouse, Sunwook Kim’s admirable account of Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto was technically dazzling if lacking in nuance before the RNS found lift off with an invigorating Schumann symphony.

The receptionist at the box office of Gateshead’s newly renamed Glasshouse seemed puzzled when I arrived shortly before a concert on this frigid late November night. The concession ticket I was after wasn’t in her pile, and she looked worried before exclaiming “ah, under 30!” before apologetically asking for my ID. Looking around, it seemed perfectly possible that I was the only concertgoer this staff member had encountered that was eligible for the Glasshouse’s generous under-30s discount. It’s a fabulous, futuristic, indulgent venue and easily the finest concert hall in Tyne & Wear; schemes like these should in theory attract more youngsters, but their effects are yet to be felt.

Tonight, there doesn’t seem to many over 30, either. Perhaps there was an iota of disappointment detectable in pianist Sunwook Kim’s eyes as he took his initial bows to a half-empty seated section and muted applause. What’s more, something in the way he threw his hands down by his sides at one point during the opening exchanges of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 worryingly suggested tiredness. This was only the second night of a two night tour, but Kim has an excuse – this concerto is a unique symphonic undertaking. Running at around 50 minutes, the work is the Hamlet of classical music and ranks amongst the longest and most complex piano concertos in history, demanding big, flexible hands and serious stamina. Brahms famously insisted on calling it “a tiny, tiny concerto”, perhaps to downplay its significance as successor of his disastrously received First Piano Concerto and the 22 year long build-up for its follow-up. In fact, nothing about this work is tiny. Instead, it is often viciously loud and fast and even includes an extra, fourth movement in a break from the three-movement concerto tradition. It seemed to take a few minutes for Sunwook Kim to fully settle himself into the first movement (no bother, since that movement alone is nearly 20 minutes long), but the time we reached the staccato pounding at the piece’s heart both Kim and the audience seemed enthralled.

Pieces as bold as this one call for some showmanship from the pianist – an irate shake of the head, a flick of the hands skyward with every sharp chord – which Kim delivered on, but there was also plenty of humility on show too. He was more than happy to stoop to some thoughtful call and response with the orchestra, his phrasing meticulously matched with the strings’. Dinis Sousa was on vivacious form, barely visible from behind the piano save for his restless, often airborne feet. He proved an expert navigator of the third movement’s meanders in which the piano concerto briefly becomes a cello concerto, and Kate Gould’s lyrical cello solo came across strikingly heartfelt and human. Here too, for an all too brief moment, Kim found some calm in the eye of the storm, patiently teasing out a quiet melody as if beckoning a kitten into his arms.

The second movement sees the concerto at its fiercest and most expansive, although Brahms was nonetheless at pains to call it a “tiny wisp of a scherzo”. It was here where Kim’s playing showed a few blemishes. The wistful melody struggled under a heavy-handed treatment, played with a blunt-force violence particularly in the upper registers; there’s a thin line between a rich, full-sounding forte and reckless jabbing at the keys. Meanwhile, the movement’s quieter passages, including a few enchanting moments of solo piano, were demoted to pretty interstitials between the ‘real’ action, Kim apparently not seeing their relevance in the grand scheme of this epic concerto.

After Kim’s otherwise impressive Brahms, the second half of this concert was something of a curiosity. This was especially true for a rendition of chamber piece Elongation of Nights, written by Lithuanian composer Justė Janulytė in 2009. It’s an intensely Baltic piece, almost to a fault. Dissonant, icy strings swelled and fell away in an intriguingly ambient ten minutes that might have set the mind wandering to tomorrow’s breakfast or my route home had it lasted much longer. Nonetheless, it was an effective conveyance of the long and lonely winter nights that envelop northern Europe every year – like a spooky, skeletal Baltic forest, Dinis Sousa remarked beforehand – if little else. Most impressive in the RNS’s performance was the extreme quietness that bookended the piece, Sousa letting a slender sheen of strings melt into silence like frost at dawn.

Robert Schumann’s exciting Fourth Symphony, a relatively compact work at 29 minutes, closed the concert. It’s a restless work – no theme or motif sticks around for long, and moments of respite from the torrent of notes are few and far between – but this seemed to suit the RNS, not least Sousa, who seemed in his element firing off an exciting new entry from a section of his orchestra virtually every bar. The RNS gained momentum alongside Schumann’s magnificently detailed score and were light on their feet for the electrifying scherzo as well as the blistering final presto, which had the strings operating at peak velocity.

I made sure to say goodbye to the couple sat next to me before leaving, who had asked me what I’d thought of Kim’s Brahms during the interval. I’d tried to talk intelligently about the piece but felt like I was unconvincingly rolling out all the fail-safe lines to get by in a conversation with an avid football fan; “Brahms was also overshadowed by Beethoven, wasn’t he?” was a bit like “Arsenal always try to walk it in, don’t they?”. Still, he seemed to believe I knew more than I truthfully do about classical music and appeared somewhat confused by my attendance, alone and conspicuously young-looking amongst the best seats in the house. It was understandable. Despite the Glasshouse’s £5 scheme for under-30s, people my age are sadly still an oddity in these sorts of venues. I left them with a promise I’d be back soon – perhaps Isata Kanneh-Mason doing Eroica in February. After Kim’s brilliant rendition of Brahms it wasn’t clear why more aren’t hooked on the genre. For me, visiting the Glasshouse for a pleasant evening is a no-brainer. Concerts of this calibre are simply too good to miss.