Musicians in Wellington

Last weekend I was captivated by two very different musicians. 

Simon O'Neill, the New Zealand tenor was one. He is one of those rare tenors who can sing Wagner repertoire. Since I heard him in 2014 his voice has deepened. It is now a rich and resonant treat. He sang the Wesendonck Lieder and his German diction was flawless. Congratulations Simon, it was a wonderful concert.

The NZSO, with whom he sang, played Bruckner's 4th Symphony after the interval. It is a long and demanding work but they played wonderfully well. . Bruckner is not my favorite composer, mainly because it is difficult to tune your digital player to play the alternating very loud and very soft music that characterises his work - if you adjust to hear the quiet parts the rest blasts you out of the room. In a concert hall however it is a different story and I loved the orchestra blasting out their forte parts - the audience vibrated with the music as the strings and horns threw themselves into the music. They must have needed masseurs the next day.

The other musician I saw on Sunday was very different. He was sitting at a painted piano on the Wellington (NZ) waterfront.  He played the way my self-taught father used to, with the left hand strumming time to the right. I found myself humming his tune all evening.


Addendum 23 June: Today I read that shortly before the Wellington concert, Simon recorded a lullaby in German and Te Reo Maori with the NZSO as a gift for the new baby of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. (More about the recording here.)

Yulianna Avdeeva in Sydney

Riveting. That is the word for Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva's performance in Sydney last week. Not showy, not flamboyant, but so persuasive that she captured her audience from the moment she began playing. 

In Sydney last Monday a lot of the audience had autumn sniffles but there was not a movement or a cough during Avdeeva's entire performance, such was the entrancement. Avdeeva won the International Chopin competition in Warsaw in 2010, the second woman to win this coverted prizde (Martha Argerich was the first) and has built a solo career since then. I had the feeliing that she played exactly as the composer would have played. The last time I had that sensation was listening to Sebastian Knauer playing his Wilhelm Kempf tribute and it is a sensation one doesn't forget..

Avdeeva played Chopin then Liszt, in an intelligently curated program, with one piece melding into the next where that was fruitful. I could have listened to her all night.

Sebastian Knauer wows his Zweisimmen audience

I came to the Menuhin Festival in Switzerland to hear Jonas Kaufman sing but on the way I have discovered another fantastic musician, a pianist called Sebastian Knauer.

Zweisimmen Church

I bought my ticket to Knauer's concert (Tribute to Wilhelm Kempf) because it was on the day before the Kaufmann concert and would be held in Zweisimmen Church which is a couple of streets from my hotel.

Stumbling over something remarkable quite by accident is such a joy. I had no idea who Wilhelm Kempf was (so much in music passed me by during my scientist years) nor Sebastian Knauer but you only have to listen to Knauer play for a few minutes to realise that he is one of a kind and I was fortunate enough to hear him at practise at the church for a little while in the morning. His playing sent me into a different dimension and I immediately went off to find out more about both he and Kempf.

Split in pole holding up
The balcony

Zweisimmen church

They are both from Hamburg (I studied there and still love the place), Knauer was something of a child protegy and Wilhelm Kempf was a renowned interpreter of Beethoven. So my ears had not deceived me; this was something special.

I have a feeling that Knauer must have learned from Kempf because during his performance of Beethoven in the evening it felt as if he was channelling the composer. He took us by the hand and led us on an emotional journey and you could have sworn Beethoven was in the room. I suppose that is how Kempf must have played and I was reminded of a piano teacher I knew in Hamburg who traced his lineage directly back to Mozart through a series of teachers. That sort of pedigree does make a difference.

Sebastian Knauer has the build of a sportsman and his playing is muscular while at the same time delicate and nuanced.

At the concert in Zweisimmen Church he played mostly Beethoven for the first half then included several Schubert pieces in the second. Two hours of playing to an audience that was captivated from the first moment and which gave him a heartfelt standing ovation.  There were several piles of his CDs available to purchase and every one was sold. I think that is the first time I have seen that happen and the audience was not particularly large. I bought his Schubert compilation so, like many, I am taking a little bit of Knauer home with me.

Yuja Wang in Sydney

Yuja Wang plays, Sydney Sept 2015

The pianist Yuja Wang is a phenomenon. I don't really know how else to describe her. 

The packed audience waiting in Sydney's Angel Place concert hall gave an astonished gasp as she appeared through the stage door. Out walked a beautiful young Chinese woman in a dress as slinky as I have ever seen on stage and very high platform shoes. Can this extraordinary person really play the piano? 

She gave a quick bow, sat down at the piano and from the moment she touched the keyboard we were in her hands. There was no question she could play, the only question was whether we had ever heard anything like her.

She played Scriabin and Chopin, then after the interval (in a different and equally stunning dress and ultra-high shoes) more Chopin and more Scriabin. She finished with Balakirev's Islamey, a piece which has the reputation of being the most difficult piece of piano music yet written. My seat neighbour told me that for this reason you often hear it at piano competitions. 

Wang played each piece as if the composers had written them just for her most amazingly competent hands. She confounded our expectations at every turn. The thing that made this performance even more exceptional was Wang's diffidence on stage. With her bobbed hair and open face she looked and acted like the teenage girl next door, bowing quickly and without artifice.

The audience was enthralled. After an extraordinary one and a half hours of playing she answered the applause with multiple encores. Not little short easy pieces but substantial works, mostly with a fun element, a bit of jazz or musical humour. 

We the audience were exhausted by the brilliance of the star. I must say that after this marathon performance she looked tired too .... although as soon as she sat for an encore the tiredness seemed to evaporate. As I left the hall I walked past the queue of people waiting for a signed CD. It stretched right along the entrance hall and into the street behind. People in the queue were telling each other that, yes, they might have to wait and hour but it was worth it. They wanted a physical memento of this extraordinary evening.