MUSIC REVIEW: Public Concerts as part of the 22nd International Piano Summer School at Chetham's School of Music, Manchester. - Week 2 #3

Chetham's School Of Music in Manchester have been running International Piano Summer Schools for the past 22 years, and this year they have opened many of the concerts given by the working professionals tutoring the courses up to the public. What a lovely idea; during a month of when traditionally, the theatre and music worlds estivate for the month, music-lovers are now given the opportunity of seeing world-class artistes performing short concerts at a world-class venue for a fraction of the cost of a standard concert.

The penultimate day of the course, and two excellent concerts have been scheduled. First to grace the stage was John Lenehan, whose speciality is film music. For today's concert his programme included piano music for films from two different categories. Lenehan explained that there were two types of film out there which rely entirely on music. First is the silent film, a "moving picture" without dialogue (save the occasional storyboards); and then the second type, films which have been made to be played with a specific piece of music in mind, and only work when that particular piece is played to accompany the film. He further enlightened us that in the former category, the pianist (or instrumentalist), had three choices when finding music suitable to accompany the film, since the studios or producers never gave any help in this regard. First was finding an already written piece of music and either playing it in its entirety or adapting it for the film. Second, composing the music for the film yourself. And finally, the third option would be to improvise as you went along!

His concert this evening showed examples of all of these, as well as a few nice surprises too. With a large screen above the stage, the films, or excerpts of the film, were shown, whilst Lenehan expertly accompanied them on the piano. Highlights included, Fischinger's 'Composition In Blue' (Germany 1935), to the music of Nicolai's 'Merry Wives Of Windsor'; Rudolph Valentino's 1922 film, 'Blood And Sand', to a tango by Albeniz; Greta Garbo's 1926 epic, 'The Temptress' to improvised music by Lenehan; an amazing cardboard cut-out silhouette film from Germany by Lotte Reineger from 1935 called 'Papageno', made especially to be filmed alongside Mozart's 'The Magic Flute'; and another stop animation film this time from Russia, made in 1973 and to be filmed to the music of Tchaikovsky's 'Waltz Of The Flowers'. The concert ended with a firm favourite, as we saw Charlie Chaplin in the Lion's Cage, from 'The Circus' (1928) to music composed by Lenehan. A lovely surprise encore followed.... Mickey Mouse and a wayward keyboard! Superb!

The second concert this evening was far more down-to-earth and traditional, as we welcomed veteran concert pianist genius, Peter Donohoe, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, to delight us with Busoni {Variations On A Theme Of Chopin Op 22}, Chopin {Sonata No 2 in Bb Minor - which includes the famous 'Funeral March'}, and Rachmaninov {Variations On A Theme Of Chopin Op22}. So we heard a true Chopin sandwich if you like, and of course no-one was disappointed with Donohoe's playing. There is little or perhaps nothing I can say or add to his long list of accolades and praises over the years. We just simply sat in awe and lapped it all up!

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 22.8.23