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LETTERS Write to International Piano, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London SE24 0PB, email international.piano@markallengroup.com or tweet @IP_mag. Star letters will receive a free CD from Hyperion’s best-selling Romantic Piano Concertos series SPONSORED BY HYPERION RECORDS EMBRYONIC SOUNDS Thank you for another interesting, stimulating and controversial issue! I enjoyed reading about today’s so-called post-classical composers (Issue 74, ‘Second wave’, page 35), but having listened to all their most popular pieces, I would suggest that they should be labelled ‘pre-classical’, as they could with luck serve as a way in to proper music. Personally, however, I would call their style ‘womb music’ – the kind of thing you might play babies before they emerge into the world: all gentle rhythms and soothing harmonies without anything to excite, challenge or stimulate. Joseph Laredo, via email TAKING NOTE I was shocked to see that your 10-member editorial board consists entirely of men. Faced with an abundance of talented female artists – Alice Sara Ott on your front cover, Angela Hewitt, Martha Argerich, Mitsuko Uchida, etc – it seems an extraordinary and entirely unnecessary bias. Can you explain what’s going on? Adrian Blair, via email The editor replies: Thank you for raising this important question. Our editorial board is primarily constituted of industry figures with institutional roles, rather than artists, and it is regretfully the case that men are currently overrepresented in such roles. Thankfully this is now changing, albeit slower than many of us would wish. I should add that work is underway to address the imbalance you have identified and we will be announcing some new members of the International Piano editorial board in the coming months. COLLECTING COMPOSERS I have just seen the cover of International Piano’s special Chopin collectors’ edition, Chopin: The Perfect Virtuoso. It looks fabulous! Such a great idea. Ivan Ili´c, via email The editor replies: Thank you for your positive feedback. Our Chopin collector’s edition is the first in a new series of annual publications about great piano composers. Future candidates currently under discussion include Liszt and Rachmaninov – so watch this space! ERRATUM Our book review of David Breitman’s Piano-Playing Revisited in July/August (page 71) suggested that ‘András Schiff has recorded late Schubert works on a Brodmann fortepiano build in 1820, about two decades before the music was written’. This chronology is incorrect, as Schubert’s late sonatas were composed in 1828. However, they were not published until 1838. Apologies for any confusion caused. 2021 Competition FINALS CONCERT Saturday 9 October 2021 at 1pm HEATHCLIFF TRIO TRIO BOHÉMO I thought I knew a lot about Bach’s notation but you opened my eyes. It is surely one of the most illuminating books on performance practice of any composer. Thank you so much for writing it. J.L. – Denver, Colorado The author’s research is overwhelming… This book gives the performer a wealth of information in a practical and non-didactic way, which will benefit all keyboard-players – pianists included. Stephen Kovacevich For full details, and to buy online www.didbach.co.uk 6 September 2021 International Piano DUO JALEF SOLERI TRIO David Parkhouse 1930-1989 Two hours of chamber music by Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Bartók and Henze will be performed by the four finalist ensembles chosen from an international entry. The result will be announced c. 3.45pm. Supported by The Tertis Foundation The Adrian Swire Charitable Trust 36 Wigmore Street London W1U 0BP wigmore-hall.org.uk 020 7935 2141 Tickets £5 free to Friends of the Parkhouse Award and Wigmore Hall Registered Charity 1014284 www.international-piano.com
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NEWS NOTES Wigmore Hall unveils strong piano season London’s Wigmore Hall has announced a full season of more than 500 concerts between 1 September 2021 and 31 July 2022. Pianists feature strongly in the line-up, including four ‘Artists in Residence’: Sergei Babayan, Angela Hewitt, Benjamin Grosvenor and Leon McCawley. Babayan will present the first book of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier on 27 September. He returns on 27 February and is joined by Martha Argerich for a duo recital on 20 May. Grosvenor’s residency begins on 9 October with a star-studded programme of piano quartets, including rarities by Mahler and Strauss. Jean-Effl am Bavouzet begins a major Debussy series that was delayed because of the pandemic, and Boris Giltburg presents ‘Ravel in Context’, juxtaposing works by the French composer and his contemporaries. The Polish pianist Ewa Pobłocka also gives her first major series at the Hall. The Nash Ensemble, led by pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips, will recreate programmes from Dame Myra Hess’s famous wartime recitals at the National Gallery. Each Nash concert consists of two original National Gallery programmes, chosen to represent the taste and skill with which the series was devised. Other piano highlights include three concerts by Danny Driver and the JACK Quartet devoted to the music of György Ligeti (29 October, 9 February, 24 May), two recitals by Sir András Schiff (12 & 14 November) and a cycle of Beethoven’s violin sonatas with Alexander Melnikov and the German violinist Isabelle Faust. John Gilhooly, artistic and executive director of Wigmore Hall, said, ‘Having navigated through the most diffi cult period in the Hall’s history, we are under no illusion about the challenges ahead. We still face the possibility of postponements or cancellations as each international territory moves through the crisis at a different pace. We will be quick to react to challenges in order to deliver our full season, finding solutions in the Hall or online, as we have done throughout the pandemic.’ Over 150 of the season’s concerts will be streamed online, beginning with 15 streams in September. Tickets priced at £5 for young people aged under-35 are available for selected concerts. wigmore-hall.org.uk Star duo: Sergei Babayan and Martha Argerich GRAMMOPHON BORGGREVE/DEUTSCHE MARCO www.international-piano.com International Piano September 2021 7

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LETTERS

Write to International Piano, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London SE24 0PB, email international.piano@markallengroup.com or tweet @IP_mag. Star letters will receive a free CD from Hyperion’s best-selling Romantic Piano Concertos series

SPONSORED BY HYPERION RECORDS

EMBRYONIC SOUNDS Thank you for another interesting, stimulating and controversial issue! I enjoyed reading about today’s so-called post-classical composers (Issue 74, ‘Second wave’, page 35), but having listened to all their most popular pieces, I would suggest that they should be labelled ‘pre-classical’, as they could with luck serve as a way in to proper music. Personally, however, I would call their style ‘womb music’ – the kind of thing you might play babies before they emerge into the world: all gentle rhythms and soothing harmonies without anything to excite, challenge or stimulate. Joseph Laredo, via email

TAKING NOTE I was shocked to see that your 10-member editorial board consists entirely of men. Faced with an abundance of talented female artists – Alice Sara Ott on your front cover, Angela Hewitt, Martha Argerich, Mitsuko Uchida, etc – it seems an extraordinary and entirely unnecessary bias. Can you explain what’s going on? Adrian Blair, via email

The editor replies: Thank you for raising this important question. Our editorial board is primarily constituted of industry figures with institutional roles, rather than artists, and it is regretfully the case that men are currently overrepresented in such roles. Thankfully this is now changing, albeit slower than many of us would wish. I should add that work is underway to address the imbalance you have identified and we will be announcing some new members of the International Piano editorial board in the coming months.

COLLECTING COMPOSERS I have just seen the cover of International Piano’s special Chopin collectors’ edition, Chopin: The Perfect Virtuoso. It looks fabulous! Such a great idea. Ivan Ili´c, via email

The editor replies: Thank you for your positive feedback. Our Chopin collector’s edition is the first in a new series of annual publications about great piano composers. Future candidates currently under discussion include Liszt and Rachmaninov – so watch this space!

ERRATUM Our book review of David Breitman’s Piano-Playing Revisited in July/August (page 71) suggested that ‘András Schiff has recorded late Schubert works on a Brodmann fortepiano build in 1820, about two decades before the music was written’. This chronology is incorrect, as Schubert’s late sonatas were composed in 1828. However, they were not published until 1838. Apologies for any confusion caused.

2021 Competition FINALS CONCERT Saturday 9 October 2021 at 1pm

HEATHCLIFF TRIO

TRIO BOHÉMO

I thought I knew a lot about Bach’s notation but you opened my eyes. It is surely one of the most illuminating books on performance practice of any composer. Thank you so much for writing it. J.L. – Denver, Colorado The author’s research is overwhelming… This book gives the performer a wealth of information in a practical and non-didactic way, which will benefit all keyboard-players – pianists included. Stephen Kovacevich

For full details, and to buy online www.didbach.co.uk

6 September 2021 International Piano

DUO JALEF

SOLERI TRIO

David Parkhouse

1930-1989

Two hours of chamber music by Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Bartók and Henze will be performed by the four finalist ensembles chosen from an international entry. The result will be announced c. 3.45pm.

Supported by The Tertis Foundation The Adrian Swire Charitable Trust

36 Wigmore Street London W1U 0BP wigmore-hall.org.uk 020 7935 2141 Tickets £5 free to Friends of the Parkhouse Award and Wigmore Hall

Registered Charity

1014284

www.international-piano.com

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