SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Mozart, Ligeti and Schubert: Paul Lewis (piano) Wigmore Hall, London, 13.6.2008 (BBr)

Mozart: Fantasia in C minor, K475 (1785)
Ligeti: Musica ricercata (1951/1953)
Mozart: Rondo in A minor, K511 (1787)
Schubert: Piano Sonata in G, D894 (1826)


This year I’ve heard a lot of late Schubert, mainly in this very hall, in some very fine performances, and this evening Paul Lewis proved himself to be a fine Schubertian with a glowing account of the sunny G major Sonata. Perhaps not quite reaching the heavenly lengths of many of Schubert’s late works, this Sonata still has plenty to say over a leisurely time scale. The easy going first movement seems to be more fantasy than sonata as it amiably makes it way through several themes, starting with a luminous chordal idea of infinite simplicity. The slow movement is songlike (but with interruptions) and Lewis really made the piano sing the themes – there might just be an over abundance of good tunes in this work – the minuet was very danceable and the bucolic finale, which can sound weak by the side of the more serious movements, was made to dance and sing, Lewis keeping a smile on his face as the jolly rondo theme came and went and had a good time in the fields.

Lewis’s performance was quite spontaneous, the music simply seeming to occur to him as he progressed. This was a young man’s Schubert, to be sure, nothing wrong with that, and with experience his interpretation will grow and mature. He obviously loves Schubert – as a Brendel pupil how could he not? – and I look forward to hearing him in more Schubert piano works. As an encore he gave the Allegretto in C minor, with the most sublime and delicate playing.

The first half was quite different. Two difficult Mozart works surrounded Ligeti’s hilarious Musica ricercata. The Mozart works are quite serious pieces, the Fantasia alternating slow and fast music. It’s a thorny piece with which to start a recital and I felt that Lewis didn’t really settle down until the second Allegro, but when he did things really happened. The Ligeti miniatures were written as exercises in how to make music with the fewest means available, therefore the first piece is built on one note, the second on three and so on so that the 11^th, and last, is based on twelve notes. They are light pieces – some of them will be better known in their arrangement as the Six Bagatelles for wind quintet – full of fun and Lewis was not averse to hamming it up once or twice to point the joke – and knowing of Ligeti’s sense of humour he would have enjoyed that, I am sure. The Mozart Rondo came as quite a shock after the Ligeti – who would have thought that it would be possible ever to write such a statement? We were really brought back to earth with a bang.

Paul Lewis is already a pianist of the front rank. He has intelligence, insight, a magnificent technique and the understanding of how music works and how to convey his vision to an audience. We shall hear much more of him and we shall be the lucky ones.

Bob Briggs


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