This weekend was unlike any other weekend. I went to two concerts instead of one. The reason. Paul Lewis! I heard him on Saturday evening and during the intermission, I learned that he had another solo piano concert the following afternoon. I knew that I simply had to listen to him again. I did. He did not let me down.
According to internet sources, Paul Lewis, now almost 40, does not come from the kind of background of many of the other musicians born and raised in a musical family. His father was a dock worker and his mother a council worker and his earliest musical education consisted of listening occasionally the pop records of his father. Though a world class pianist, piano was not his first musical instrument. He first learned cello because that was the only instrument available in his school at that time but he soon developed a love for the piano for which he showed great talent. He went to the the Chetham School of Music at 14. There he learned the piano from Ryszard Bakst, Joan Hayil and later Alfred Brendel. In 1994, he got the second prize at the World Piano Competition in London and went on to win numerous other prizes at various international competitions.
In his tour of Europe and America in 2007, Lewis played the complete series of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas which was recorded by the French label Harmonia Mundi all of which made their way into Gramophone "Editor's choice" and some of them won its "Best Instrumental" and "Best recording of the year" and last summer, he performed all five of Beethoven' s Piano Concertos during the BBC Proms.
I like the way he articulated every note and the way he could switch magically from extremely hard striking notes to extremely soft and delicate notes on the keyboard, thus giving the music a most delicious tension whilst maintaining a constant rhythm with his left hand in various musical passages. I also like the way that he elicited from the piano the full range of its rich harmonics, even with the softer notes. It was an absolute delight to hear him play.
Geoffrey Norris of the Daily Telegraph says that ""There is in Lewis's playing a strong physicality, a firm connectionbetween his deep thinking about the music and his articulation of it. He
knows and can define its character, and can show how its rhythmic,
harmonic and melodic components coalesce. This was playing of
intellectual rigour and imaginative vigour." I agree that his playing has a strong physicality. The moment you hear it, you'd know that it's a man playing. But that does not mean that he cannot play soft notes. He is equally adept in playing both! It's a most unusual combination.
The programme on Sunday was an all Schubert affair. According to Lewis, “When Schubert wants
to tell you something important, he will usually lower his
voice rather than raise it — he draws you into the message, rather than
projects it out to you.”. He started off with Schubert's 4 Impromptus D 935: No. 1 in F minor, No.2 in A flat, No.3 in B flat and No.4 again in F minor, some of the most beautiful pieces that Schubert has written. According to the Programme Notes, it was not Schubert's idea to call his short piano pieces "Impromptus", a title first invented by a Bohemian composer called Jan Vaclav Vorisek. But there is nothing properly speaking, "impromptu" about them. I hear these four impromptus, played by Joao Maria Pires, at least once a week and am quite familiar with the way she played them. Lewis played them a bit like her but with more masculine structure and firmness and just a wee bit less flow but in perfect balance. I like the way that he keeps to a firm rhythm and structure without losing the delicate song like lyricism of Schubert's work.
Next we had Schubert's Moments Musicaux D 780: No.1 in C, No.2 in A flat, No.3 in F minor, NO.4 in C sharp minor, No.5 in F minor and No.6 in F flat. The Programme Note says that originally, No. 3 and 5 were written by Schubert as Air russe ( Russian Air) ((sounds really Slavic) and Les Plaintes d'un Troubadour (The complaints of a troubador) and the other 4 were all composed in late 1827. These again are pieces very familiar to me. Lewis is a most versatile player. He is able to deliver the sadness, the sorrow, the grace, the contemplative mood, the hesitations, the pauses, the power and the sparkling joy of these pieces in the most personal and intimate manner. It was a most enrapturing experience.
The programme ended with a fiery and powerful piece, Schubert's Fantasie in C D, 760 sometimes called Wandererfantasie (The Fantasy of a Wanderer). Everybody knows that Schubert loves little songs and often he wrote his pieces as if they were songs. According to the Programme Notes, this piece was based on one of the songs written by Georg Philipp schmidt von Lubert and which Schubert wrote for one of his wealthy patrons in late 1822 . It was from the materials and themes of such songs that Schubert wrote his Trout quintet and Death and the Maiden. It was technically very difficult. There is a story that when he was in the middle of playing it for his friends, Schubert stopped and shouted "Let the devil play it!". With the amount of banging on the piano required, I am not at all surprised. The piece is in Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo, Adagio, Presto and Allegro. The four pieces are joined by a common theme most developed in the second movement, based on the words: "Here the sun seems so cold/the blossom faded, life old/and men's words were hollow noise;/I am a stranger everywhere." One feels the anger, the frustration, the despair, the quiet helplessness and the composer's desire to transcend them in this symphonic piece. Lewis played like the devil, but a devil with a heart. I am sure that Brendel did not regret having him as a student. As encores, Lewis for us t2 pieces both of which I have heard but I cannot recall their titles. I am so glad I went to the concert. I would never have forgiven myself had I decided that it was too troublesome to get the tickets early the same morning as the concert so as to be sure that I would still be able to get a ticket at prices I can afford.
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