An unapologetic sense of fun

The concert review is out - its generally extremely complimentary and Dr. Chang Tou Liang is right. The experience was indeed FUN :) Even the headliner is fun :P

Naughty fun on 88 keys
By Chang Tou Liang
# concert

VIRTUOSO PIANO TRANSCRIPTIONS
Kenneth Hamilton, piano
Esplanade Recital Studio/Sunday

SCOTTISH pianist Kenneth Hamilton, author of After The Golden Age (2007), obviously practises what he preaches.

His book recounts the more arcane habits of historical pianism, and he had ample opportunity to try them out on an unsuspecting audience in his recital.

As latecomers streamed in after the opener, he played Paderewski's lovely Nocturne to settle them into their seats.

He also linked two different pieces, the Schubert-Liszt Serenade and Schumann-Liszt Dedication, with a spot of random modulation, a now-forgotten art called 'preluding'. He then ad-libbed, adding further filigree to Liszt's transcription of Gounod's Waltz from Faust.

Purists will throw up their arms in horror, but great pianist-composers were doing this until the 1940s. Even wrong notes - and there was an almighty hash after the beginning of the Tchaikovsky-Liszt Polonaise from Eugene Onegin - were par for the course.

Chatting to the audience between pieces, Hamilton drew chortles and guffaws. And in the multitudes of notes that flew from velvet-clothed steel fingers, he brought back what has been missing from concerts in these politically correct times - an unapologetic sense of fun.

Most importantly, the playing was one possessed of intellect and passion, power and colour. The Bach-Busoni Chaconne unfolded with the majesty of a gothic cathedral, while tinges of regret permeated the busyness of Mendelssohn's Last Rose Of Summer Fantasy and grey clouds of the Tchaikovsky-Rachmaninov Lullaby.

There was also a stupendous reading of the monstrous Hexameron, a set of variations on a theme of Bellini by six Romantic pianist-composers, including Chopin and Liszt.

Here the pianist as fearless conqueror of the beast with 88 keys was well illustrated. Every trick in the book was dispatched with the wildest of abandon.

There were two big encores, including Chopin's Polonaise Op.53, with galloping octaves amplified by Busoni.

Very naughty, but these are the very moments why people leave their iPods and CD players at home and attend live concerts.