Snow Concert
Hall, June 29th, 2023.
Reviewed by
BILL STEPHENS
London-based
Australian pianist, Piers Lane AO, is the second artist to be showcased in the
Snow Concert Hall International Series.
Lane is an
Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music and during the Queen’s Diamond
Jubilee Birthday Honours was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for
distinguished services to the arts. In 2022 he was presented with the Sir
Bernard Heinze Award for his service to music in Australia.
His concerto
repertoire of over 100 works has led to engagements with many of the world’s
great orchestra’s and he has been five times soloist at the BBC Proms in the
Royal Albert Hall. He also gives annual solo recitals in Wigmore Hall.
Back in
Australia to chair the jury for the Sydney International Piano Competition,
Lane took the opportunity to delight his Canberra audience with a sublime
concert of piano works by two master composer-pianists, Rachmaninoff and
Chopin.
Having recorded
more than 70 CDs and premiered works by contemporary composers including Brett
Dean, Colin Matthews, Richard Mills, Carl Vine and Malcolm Williamson, Lane’s
choice for this concert of a program of works by two of the great classic
pianist-composers, at first seemed particularly intriguing.
His program
was presented in two halves. The first devoted to Sergei Rachmaninoff and the
second to Frederic Chopin. In his charming introductions to each section Lane explained
the reasons for his choices and the connections between the two composers.
Commencing
with arguably Rachmaninoff’s most popular composition, his Prelude in C-sharp Minor, Op 3 No 2, which some believe was inspired
by the bells of the Kremlin; Lane immediately captured the audience attention
with his dramatic rendering of the first three chords. He played them so
commandingly that the audience hardly dared to breathe until, after an extended
pause, he echoed the tentative reply.
From those three notes onward he kept the audience in his thrall with
his virtuosic shaping of this favourite work.
He followed with
four more Rachmaninoff concerti, deftly revealing the varying moods and essence
of each, before arriving at perhaps the most intriguing work on the program,
Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of
Chopin Op.22
Lane
explained that Rachmaninoff was an admirer of Chopin and often featured
Chopin’s compositions in his concerts. He had composed these variations as homage.
It proved to be an imposing work demanding a virtuosic interpretation, which is
exactly what it received from Lane.
Following an
interval, Lane continued with a collection of 11 short Chopin compositions,
four of which, he explained, had originally been used for a short baller
choreographed by Michel Fokine entitled “Chopiniana”. Fokine later reworked his
idea by adding more of Chopin’s compositions to create the ballet “Les
Sylphides” for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.
Commencing
with the majestic Polonaise in A Major,
Op.40 No.1, Lane worked his way the entire suite of Nocturne’s, Mazurkas,
Tarantellas and Waltz's, until he arrived at the final Grande Valse Brilliant in E-flat, performing each with such
exquisite delicacy that it was impossible not to conjure up visions of the
ethereal white-clad sylphs which provided the inspiration for one of Fokine’s
most enduring ballet blancs.
Following an
encore of one more Chopin nocturne, the lushly romantic Nocturne in E Flat Major, the blissed-out
audience filed out into the frosty Canberra evening warmed by the realisation
that it had just experienced a remarkable performance by a celebrated
Australian piano virtuoso. One which will undoubtedly become a treasured
memory.
Images by Peter Hislop
This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au
