19th Chetham’s International Piano Festival, The Stoller Hall
Martino Tirimo, 5pm 15th August 2019
The opening recital to Chetham’s School of Music’s international summer school and festival for pianists was given by prestigious pianist Martino Tirimo who was introduced with a brief overview of some of his accomplishments which include having conducted an opera at the age of 10, and since then having recorded the complete piano works of Mozart, Chopin, Schubert and recently of Beethoven.
The programme consisted of lesser performed pieces by Beethoven. These covered a variety of Beethoven’s styles and covered pieces from his entire period of composition.
The opening 7 variations of God Save The King were performed with utmost solemnity adding a deep beauty to the familiar theme of the British National Anthem, performed first in a choral style then adapted and varied by various compositional devices. Tirimo made great ability to keep the melody first and foremost in each variation without losing the various effects and decorations that adorned it.
This solemnity was kept for the entire concert, which was entirely fitting for the serious character that Beethoven was. Possibly beyond any other composer, the music of Beethoven provides a window into his thoughts and feelings. Tirimo was able to present that in his performance.
The 7 Ländler– an Austrian folk dance in quadruple metre – were melodically driven and maintained a degree of simplicity as was expected from folk music. Tirimo played these with great playfulness and certainly danced around the keyboard.
Timiro treated each subsequent piece - the Allegretto in C minor, Waltz in E flat, Fantasy and G minor - with delicacy, balancing melodic expression, sometimes extremely moving, with a meaningful meandering of harmonic exploration.
The final piece, one of Beethoven’s last sonatas, E Major, No. 109 was performed with great pathos. This piece reflects a maturity in style as Beethoven pushed towards the romantic period adding more complex harmonies and progressions, with more moments of meaningful dissonance. He still incorporated exciting contrapuntal passages but increasingly, as highlighted by Tirimo, the ornaments and fugal complexities became an integral part of emotive expression rather than just effects.
Tirimo was well received by an excited audience and it was indeed a treat to hear these pieces performed so reverently.
Reviewer - Aaron Loughrey
on - 15/8/19
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