Instruments from the Versatility Serenaders' set-up at the Wigmore Hall Twitter Party |
In Schubert and Schumann, Gabriela Montero combined a strong technique with a sense of poetry and above all some lovely big, vibrant tone. She seems to play quite close to the keyboard and from the opening notes of the first Schubert impromptu we knew that we were in for some big bold playing. The four Impromptus make a large scale group, almost a sonata in breath and conception, and Montero brought a seriousness of purpose to them, allied to some finely graded playing and real vibrancy. This approach paid off in the Schumann, where Carnaval became a sequence of really highly coloured character sketches with Gabriela Montero moving with quicksilver speed from one strongly characterised mood to the other. This was a big opening half, lasting well over an hour, but the second half was completely remarkable too.
Here Gabriela Montero gave us five improvisations, four of which were based on themes suggested by the audience; the draw back being that the audience member had to sing the theme. Gabriela Montero has improvised at the piano since she was eight, and she said that she enjoyed it because it was of the moment, there was Nothing before, and nothing after.
The first suggestion was the theme tune from Indiana Jones which was sung with gusto by the member of the audience and elicited the comment from Gabriela Montero that it was so '80s but drew from her a remarkable piece of playing which started in neo-fugal mode and gradually moved from Bach to Beethoven. Dido's Lament gave up a web of influences with a lovely complex of moving lines in the piano, gradually evoking something of Brahms' Handel variations with one influence merging into another. The song The Lady is a Tramp yielded the hilarious situation where no-one seemed to be able to sing the tune properly. The theme Gabriela Montero ultimately used, generated some chunky harmonies and big late-romantic sounds which gradually developed into a really high energy Prokofiev-like climax.
The next improvisation was on her native country Venezuela, with the themes of struggle and chaos helping us to understand their pain though music. It started as something surprisingly simple and haunting. Always sober and sombre, the music developed really strong intensity. Finally, an improvisation on Happy Birthday which moved from Mozart to a big Russian romantic finish.
There were a number of Venezuelan's in the audience and their lively reaction to Gabriela Montero's playing included a young boy with a Venezuelan flag.
And afterwards of course, there was a terrific party. Not only catching up with old friends, but meeting people with whom we had only previously had an on-line relationship. It was great to have a long meet tenor (and recent Twitter recruit) Robin Tritschler with our talk ranging from the recent Cosi fan tutte at Garsington, to Twitter hash tags and the music of Percy Grainger. We started with cocktails and the cakes had the new Wigmore Hall logo in them. And were entertained by Patricia Hammond and the Versatility Serenaders whose style is intended to invoke the music on recordings from the early 20th century and who are certainly worth catching.
Elsewhere on this blog:
- Intriguing timbral world of Matthew Whiteside in Dichroic Light - CD review
- Real Charm Populaires with Amel Brahim-Djelloul - CD review
- Disappointing Guillaume Tell at Covent Garden - Opera review
- Fraternal bond: Rameau's Castor et Pollux - Cd review
- Strikingly imaginative: Albert Herring at the Royal College of Music - opera review
- A career illuminated Christoph von Dohnanyi in conversation - feature article
- Ravishing: Carolyn Sampson and the Heath Quartet in Schoenberg & John Musto - concert review
- Vividly theatrical: Rossini's La gazza ladra - CD review
- Musicology and Musicianship: Handel's L'Allegro - CD review
- Imaginative translation: Samson et Dalila at Grange Park - opera review
- Satisfying balance: La Bohème at Grange Park - opera review
- Virtuosity with a human touch: My encounter with Matthew Sharp, cellist, baritone, director, creative director of Revelation St Mary's, artist in association with the English Symphony Orchestra - interview
- Brilliant personal vision: Le Concert Spirituel in Vivaldi and Campra - concert review
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