Music on Thursdays

Thursday 5th November 2015
12.30 Lunchtime
Leatherhead Methodist Church

PIANISTIC FIREWORKS with
Viv McLean, piano

2015 Season Sponsor:
Patricia Morgan Optician

Supported by:
Leatherhead Concert & Arts Society

Programme

Enrique Granados (1867-1916)
from Goyescas Op 11 (1911), subtitled Los majos enamorados (The Gallants in Love)
Quejas, o La Maja y el ruiseñor (Complaint, or the Maiden and the Nightingale)

Manuel De Falla (1876-1946)
from El Amor Brujo
Ritual Fire Dance (1915)

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
from 12 Études Op 25
No 1 in A Flat Aeolian Harp (1836)
No 12 in C Minor Ocean (1836)

Nocturne Op. Post. in C Sharp Minor (1830)
 Lento con gran espressione

from 3 Waltzes Op 64 (1846-1847)
No 1 in D Flat Minute Waltz

Ballade No. 3 in A Flat Op 47 (1840-1841)

George Gershwin (1898-1937)
Rhapsody in Blue (1924)

Although it was not installed and ready to play until February of this year, the Schiedmayer piano was donated to LMC almost exactly a year ago.

The piano has served this concert series well (and delighted one wedding couple).

Viv McLean is without doubt the player to excite our audience with the instrument.

Today's concert will be a tremendous tribute to the donor's generosity.

Viv McLean

Winner of the First Prize at the 2002 Maria Canals International Piano Competition in Barcelona, Viv McLean has performed at all the major venues in the UK as well as throughout Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA.

Viv’s concerto work includes appearances with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Sinfonia Viva, Orchestra of the Swan, London Concert Orchestra, Scottish Concert Orchestra and the National Musicians' Symphony Orchestra.

Recent concerto highlights include Mozart K 467 with the English Chamber Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, Grieg with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Barbican, a tour of the USA with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performing Gershwin, Rachmaninov’s 3rd Concerto with the RPO in Cambridge, Gershwin and Bernstein with the Hallé at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, and Beethoven's 5th Concerto with the Philharmonia at the Royal Festival Hall.

Viv has performed chamber music with leading groups such as the Ysaÿe String Quartet, the Sacconi String Quartet, Ensemble 360, the Galliard Wind Ensemble and the Leopold String Trio and has collaborated with musicians such as Natalie Clein, Marianne Thorsen, Daniel Hope, Lawrence Power, Eijin Nimura, Phillip Dukes, Matthew Sharp, Kate Gould, Guy Johnston, Richard Dubugnon, David Le Page, Wayne Marshall, Christopher Warren-Green, Owain Arwell Hughes, David Charles Abell, Carl Davis, and Marvin Hamlisch.

Viv McLean has performed at festivals including the Cheltenham International Festival and Harrogate Festival in the UK, the International Beethoven Festival, the Mecklenburg Festival and the Kultur Kreis Festival in Germany, the Melle Festival and Festival de Saintes in France, the Vinterfestspill i Bergstaden in Norway and the Musik vid Kattegatt Festival in Sweden.

Viv studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Hamish Milne where he held the Hodgson Fellowship and was made an Associate of the Royal Academy in 2005. He made his Wigmore Hall recital debut through winning the Friends of the Royal Academy Wigmore Award. Whilst studying at the Academy, he was the piano winner at the Royal Overseas-League Music Competition and was selected as one of three winners of the National Federation of Music Societies' Young Artists Competition, leading to various recitals and concerto appearances throughout Great Britain.

Viv has recorded regularly for BBC Radio 3 since making his recital debut through the BBC Radio 3 Young Artists Forum scheme and has also recorded recitals for Classic FM, WDR Radio in Germany, Radio France, ABC Radio in Australia, NRK Radio in Norway and for the Sky Arts television channel. His commercial releases include recordings for such labels as Sony Classical Japan, Naxos, Nimbus and the RPO label.

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The pianist Viv McLean seemed exceptional to me; he astonished us with his musical maturity and extraordinary sonority.  Le Monde (Paris)

At the Festival de Melle, Viv McLean revealed extraordinary originality, superb simplicity, and fingers of steel hidden behind muscles of velvet. He is an otherworldly young man - he plays with the genius one finds in those who know how to forget themselves, naturally placing themselves at the right point to meet the music, this mystery of the moment.
Le Monde (Paris)

The pianist Viv McLean never faltered, spewing molten lava. The Times (London)

The fluent technique and brilliance of the interpreter were impressive, he played with insight and the greatest sensitivity. General Anzeiger (Bonn)

The listener was struck by the sustained level of technical mastery. Viv McLean performed with his mind as well as his hands.  Malta Sunday Times

Fireworks from the Keyboard

“Remember, remember, the fifth of November.”
Everything by memory,
not a single written note to his aid –
he removed the shelf and desk beforehand,
baring all the strings in their full range.
Without safety net, he treads a tightrope;
with supreme confidence
he lets the music rule him,
surrenders completely to its momentum.
Forecast pianistic fireworks
raised our expectations in advance;
but with slow and liquid intensity
Granados initiates his programme –
with furrowed brow and total absorption
he crouches yet lower,
coaxing fingers caress keys,
tap into that well of emotion.
Then Ritual Fire Dance, sorcerer,
explodes the arena with magic.
Chopin in all his moods
fills the arched space through nimble fingers.
(Minute Waltz – surely no faster?
The name is myth, not fact.)
Reviews from the Press:
steel and velvet; spewing lava
amplified the adjectives.
His fleeting facial angles, never still,
tilt of shining scalp and pointed chin,
join the flourish of his flailing arms,
as Rhapsody in Blue concludes his play
(memorised, but style with scope to improvise),
elicits images of licking flames and thunder
on this iconic anniversary.


Peter Horsfield 5/11/2015

Inspired by the lunchtime piano recital given at Leatherhead Methodist Church on 5th November 2015 by Viv McLean. Viv first performed here accompanying wind players in October 2014.

Iconic anniversary because this was indeed Fireworks, Bonfire, or Guy Fawkes Night, when the English remember the failed Gunpowder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.

Concert at Home

If you are unable to come along to today's concert, here instead is a selection of links to recordings of the same or similar works for your listening enjoyment.

Viv McLean opens today's concert with The Maiden and the Nightingale, by Granados. Let's listen to an excellent recording of Spanish pianist Alfredo Armero playing the work in Barcelona's Academia Marshall :

Next we hear the Ritual Fire Dance from De Falla's ballet-opera El amor brujo (Love, the magician).
If you haven't heard Viv McLean's playing before, this performance from Les Invalides, Paris, by Mauricio Nader will give you some sense of the energy, the vitality they bring to their playing.
And, as we are an audience that has come to appreciate the accordion over the last twelve months, you will find, on the right, a performance of the same work on piano accordion, by Nick Ariondo.

This is a first for us - a man playing an electric keyboard. I particularly like his Guiness coaster. Still, it's a pretty good recording of Chopin's Étude Aeolian Harp. Should you prefer your Chopin in a more traditional vein, then here's a stunning Russian television recording of Arthur Rubinstein, at the Moscow Conservatory in October 1964:

We have set the bar rather high now, so for a performance of Chopin's Océan we turn to Vladimir Horowitz:

Chopin's Nocturne wrote two Nocturnes in C sharp minor. This is the one written in 1830 and published posthumously in 1870. Keeping up the high standards we have set for ourselves, here is a recording by Vladimir Ashkenazy:

Have you ever fancied sitting with your eyes level with the lowest notes of the piano and admiring the wizardry that ensues ? Well, here's your chance as Lang Lang plays Chopin's Minute Waltz during a break in rehearsals for Radio Boston Radio in the city's Symphony Hall.

Next we hear Yuja Wang playing Chopin's Ballade No 3 in A flat, for a lunchtime concert at LSO St Lukes, on London's Old Street. If you're curious about the LSO St Luke's project this wikipedia article is a good starting point.

There really is a great deal of fun to be had with Gershwin's celebrated Rhapsody in Blue, do explore youtube to find your own favourites. Sticking with the piano only idea of today's concert, here are two versions.
To the left you will hear Sara Davis Buechner in a live, and wonderfully lively, performance for solo piano.
To the right you will find a recording by the piano duo of Donald Ryan (father) and Barron Ryan (son)
from their CD Ryan & Ryan Face to Face (even though they seem to be seated back to back).

We hope you have enjoyed your Concert at Home

Although it was not installed and ready to play until February of this year,
the Schiedmayer piano was donated to LMC almost exactly a year ago.
It has served this concert series well (and delighted one wedding couple).
Viv McLean is without doubt the player to excite our audience with the instrument.
What a tremendous tribute to our donor today's concert has been.

LMC - map

Directions to
 Leatherhead Methodist Church

Previous THURsday

Timothy Ridout, viola
Amiran Zenaishvili, piano

following thursday

2015 Season Finale:
Atéa Wind Quintet

Patricia Morgan Optician - 2015 Season Sponsor