News
18/2/2011
Norwich culture vulture, Tony Cooper, reports on a Beethoven piano feast
The Diamond Jubilee season of the Norfolk and Norwich Music Club draws to a rather nice close with the brilliant young French pianist, François-Frédéric Guy, performing the complete cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas over a ten-day period starting on Friday March 25 and ending on Sunday April 3.
It's most certainly a remarkable feat for any pianist to undertake and his appearance in Norwich must be seen as a considerable coup for the Music Club and Roger Rowe, the club's programme director, is jubilant in securing his services after being on the case for some time.
‘François-Frédéric Guy's an absolutely amazing talented pianist,” Roger enthused, “and was spotted several years ago by BBC Radio 3 and immediately put on their Young Generation Artists' Scheme programme. Since then he has made a big name for himself throughout the world's concert halls. But although he has performed the Beethoven cycle to great acclaim in France, Germany and America, surprisingly, this will be the first time that he has performed the cycle in the UK.’
Comprising 32 sonatas, the cycle includes such famous pieces as the Moonlight, Appassionata, Les Adieux and Pathétique as well as that Everest of all sonatas, the Hammerklavier. They are widely recognised as one of the pinnacles of western civilisation akin to the canon of plays by Shakespeare.
‘The world's greatest pianists have long regarded these works as the ultimate keyboard challenge,’ said Roger, ‘not only because on their technical difficulty, but because they encapsulate a lifetime of experiences from supreme joy to the depths of despair and much in between.’
‘The cycle offers Norwich audiences a great opportunity to a feast of Beethoven performed by a first-class international pianist who, undoubtedly, is in his prime,’ Roger further exclaimed. ‘In many ways the cycle echoes the fabled visit of the Borodin String Quartet's visit to Norwich in 2004 when they played the complete Beethoven quartet cycle. Their visit is still affectionately talked about today. FFG's visit falls into this category and, I feel, is not to be missed! If you cannot come to the complete cycle then just sample a concert or two. It promises something you'll probably never forget.’
François-Frédéric Guy is most certainly the ‘man-of-the-moment’ and enjoying a glittering and successful globe-trotting career. He has established himself amongst his peers as a pianist of immense interpretative authority and superlative technique and is especially admired in the music of the Austro-German tradition.
With his exceptional command of keyboard sonority, he has made a speciality of works on the grandest scale such as the major piano works of Brahms while his recording of Beethoven's Hammerklavier for Näive was recently declared the best available by BBC Radio 3's Building a Library. His recording of Liszt's B minor sonata also attracted great critical attention.
FFG, however, had a good grounding and studied with two exceptional teachers at the Paris Conservatoire, Dominique Merlet and Christian Ivaldi, graduating from this revered institute with First Prize.
In addition to his admiration of Beethoven - whom he describes as ‘the alpha and omega of music’ - he has special affinities with the music of Bartók and Prokofiev as well as a strong commitment to contemporary music. He has close ties with such leading contemporary composers as Ivan Fedele, Marc Monnet, Gerard Pesson and Hugues Dufourt, who recently dedicated a significant new piano piece to him entitled Erlkönig.
In demand worldwide, FFG has performed with such luminous orchestras as the Berlin Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Hallé, Helsinki Philharmonic, Japan Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de Lyon and San Francisco Symphony.
He stormed to success on his début at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall four years ago with the critics and the public alike waxing lyrical over his playing of Ravel's piano concerto with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia. Other outstanding conductors with whom he has worked include Bernard Haitink, Daniel Harding, Neeme Järvi, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Now after all his globetrotting playing with the big orchestras of the world in the big concert halls of the world, it now comes down to him performing solo the revered and treasured Beethoven sonata cycle in the cosy and intimate setting of the home base of the Music Club at the John Innes Centre, Colney Lane, Norwich, on Friday March 25 (7.30pm). For those who have not experienced this venue, it's one of the most comfortable and acoustically-grateful concert halls in Norwich.
But there are two lunchtime concerts too, on Tuesday March 29 and Thursday March 30 (both at 1pm) at Norwich's Assembly House, which was the main venue for the Music Club for the first four decades of its existence.
Happy diamond jubilee!