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Stephanie McCallum Piano Contrasts Pilgrim Church, Sat 11 March This year's Festival is somewhat thin on the ground when it comes to top-notch pianism, other than the forthcoming Shostakovich's Piano Concerto #1 with the indominatible Michael Kieran Harvey and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. The only other performance lies in Saturday's recital by the shamefully under known Stephanie McCallum. Specialising in the 19th century virtuosic compositions of Liszt, Alkan and Weber, McCallum's concert started well with truly beautiful and exacting performances of Liszt - well-known pieces from the breathtaking marathon of pianistic travelogues, Annees de Pelerinage and the Valse Impromptu. These were finely attuned performances with the Valse deserving of especially high praise. As always, the attention to technical details throughout this generous and exacting recital were spellbinding. And the mixture of dissonance and tango familiar in the work of Elena Kats-Chernin sounded easy and assured in McCallum's hands. These works which formed the first of half would have provided an ample recital for virtually any other pianist gave way to a truly awe inspiring performance of the long and difficult Concerto for solo piano by the French eccentric Charles-Valentin Alkan. I suggest that McCallum is the Alkan pianist of our age particularly following the recent death of her teacher and Alkan specialist Ronald Smith. When one considers the humid weather experienced on Saturday, and particularly the fact that this recital was held in an unairconditioned church, the concentration and the precision in McCallum's playing of these technically challenging works deserves the highest praise. I'm told that ABC are releasing a double disc set of the Douze Etudes dans les tons mineurs by her later in the year - and this series includes the marathon Solo Concerto. On the basis of this stupendous recital, if you are at all interested in virtuosic pianism of the highest calibre, do try it.  |
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