Volume 19 Issue 4 - December 2013

and I’m a little less into that sort of thing now. I’ve found joy insimpler repertoire.“And there’s a lot of the standard repertoire that I still haven’t done.For next year, I’ve programmed Schubert’s Sonata in A Major D.959and his Impromptus — and I’ll be playing the Impromptus for the firsttime. But I’ll also revisit Nikolai Medtner’s Night Wind Sonata, which Ithink is an unsung masterpiece. It would benefit any young composerto study it very closely.”Hamelin’s international career has maintained its lofty status. He’scurrently artist-in-residence at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall(where he made a memorable live recording slmost 20 years ago). Herecently gave the first of five recitals there; the program’s first half wasidentical to the one he will be performing in Toronto January 21 andrepeating in Lindsay the next evening. London blogger Frances Wilsonsummed it up: “The program traced a darkly lit narrative from thebrooding opening bars of Hamelin’s atmospheric Barcarolle, throughthe sprawling musical landscapes of Medtner’s Night Wind pianosonata.” Here, he’ll be playing the last four Schubert Impromptus afterintermission.Hamelin is a pianist whose mastery of the mechanical aspectsof music making has always been in support of his artistic vision, ameans of fulfilling the music’s emotional content. Mark the date.LaPlante and Lortie: LaPlante’s recital at the Narvesons’ Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Series, in Waterloo January 18, harks backto that autumn week in 2007. Included in a program of the kind ofvirtuosic romantic music for which the pianist is known — Chopin,Liszt and a Busoni arrangement of the Bach Toccata, Adagio andFugue in C — is the Mozart Sonata in E-flat K282 he played six yearsago. Coincidentally he’s also performing the Jacques Hétu VariationsHamelin played during that same anniversary celebration.Lortie will be leading the TSO from the keyboard in a performanceJanuary 22 and 23 of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.22, K482 with itshaunting middle “Andante” and elegant cantabile slow menuet thathijacks its “Allegro” third movement. “The important thing about asoloist being able to conduct,” Lortie says on his website, “is that he isa master of time in all senses.” He believes that it’s the time involvedin rehearsal (“which ideally is as much time as needed”) that is essential.Since he believes that the Mozart concertos are true chambermusic and that every player brings his own input to the playing ofthem, “you must have time to discuss phrasings with people.” Peoplewho play a Mozart trio or quartet will take hours to discuss theirapproach; he wants to bring those same values to the concertos.Bezuidenhout: On the subject of Mozart, fortepiano specialistKristian Bezuidenhout conducts the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestrafrom the keyboard December 5 to 8 in Mozart’s Concertos Nos. 9 &11, K271 and K413. Like Hamelin’s, Bezuidenhout’s boyhood homehad a massive record collection and by the age of 9 or 10 he wasintimately familiar with Mozart’s music. He discovered his fascinationwith historic keyboards as student at the Eastman School ofMusic. “The scale of the piano went just far enough that one couldrecapture the sense of sturm and drang and tempestuousness that ispresent in Mozart’s music,” he observes in a video available on theTafelmusik website.Finally, a third pianist-conductor, Ignat Solzhenitsyn (son of theiconic Soviet writer and dissident), will, like Lortie, bring his talentsto Roy Thomson Hall as part of the TSO “Mozart @258 Festival.” OnJanuary 11 he will perform the Concerto No.18, K456 with its secondmovement “Andante” exhibiting a pathos rare for the composer.QUICK PICKS!!Two in Waterloo: Highly touted American pianist Andrew VonOeyen’s December 2 concert ranges from Bach’s Partita No.1 toRavel’s La Valse; the gifted French pianist Jean-Philippe Collard’seye-opening program January 15 consists of Debussy’s Preludes,Book I and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Both at thePerimeter Institute.!!Koerner Hall Debut: Russian-born pianist Kirill Gerstein whodivides his time between America and Germany is that rare classicalpianist with a jazz degree from the Berklee College of Music. HisDecember 8 program includes two Ligeti Etudes, two Virtuoso Etudesby Earl Wild from songs by Gershwin and Pictures at an Exhibition.!!COC Piano Virtuoso Series: RCM Rebanks Fellowship-winnerStefan Chaplikov takes on Beethoven’s massive masterpiece,the Hammerklavier Sonata December 10; fellow RCM RebanksFellowship-winner (and one of the few Arabs performing Westernclassical music), Algerian-born Mehdi Ghazi looks to reveal thepassion in works by Rachmaninov, de Falla, Prokofiev and MessiaenJanuary 7; young American Christopher Goodpasture plays Fantasiesby Schumann and Hétu and Etudes by Chopin and DebussyJanuary 16. All concerts are free and at noon in the Richard BradshawAuditorium.)Paul Ennis is The WholeNote’s managing editor.20 | December 1, 2013 – February 7, 2014 thewholenote.com