London Piano Concert
29 March 2018
The Church of St Lawrence Jewry is one of the finest Wren Churches in the City of London and the official Church of the Lord Mayor of London and the City of London Corporation. It stands in the yard of the Guildhall and is a well-known venue for weekly piano recitals on Mondays and organ recitals on Tuesdays. It was here that five Stoic pianists gave a recital on Monday 12 March 2018. Most of these concerts are given either by professional musicians or conservatoire students so it was with some apprehension that I went to hear our Stoic musicians strut their stuff on this occasion. Unlike most instrumentalists, pianists cannot take their instrument with them and are often performing on unfamiliar pianos. St Lawrence has an attractive Steinway grand but it is of a different generation from the fine new pianos at Stowe and required the performers to adjust their touch to the different action characteristics of an older instrument. This they did with remarkable success; the sounds I heard on this occasion were engaging and attractive. The concert began with the Prelude and Fugue in F Sharp Minor from Book 1 of the 48 Preludes and Fugues by Bach. Annabel Hing (Third Form, Stanhope) played with excellent clarity and control; though the spacious acoustic of the Church might have benefitted from a slightly slower tempo in the Prelude, but she held it all together with aplomb. This was followed by Rosia Li (Fourth Form, Stanhope) playing Beethoven’s famous Pathetique Sonata, she produced the necessary drama in the outer movements and a wide range of tone - indeed she occasionally went past the piano’s optimum fortissimo level. Rosia shaped the brief slow movement in the most attractive way and the entire sonata had been faultlessly memorised. This was followed by Jeffrey Au (Fifth Form, Walpole) playing the first movement of Mozart’s A Minor Sonata; he played it with great technical certainty and plenty of light and shade. Again it might have benefited from a slightly more restrained tempo in the resonance of the Church but its energy carried the audience through from beginning to end. For me the high point of the concert was Billy Baker’s (Lower Sixth, Chatham) performance of Chopin’s Fantasie Inpromptu. This famous show piece was delivered with style and conviction and above all, with a real sense that Billy was listening acutely to what was actually emerging from the piano. One sensed him adapting his dynamics to the unfamiliar instrument and equally unfamiliar acoustic in a most sophisticated way. More Chopin ended the concert: the Ballade No 3 played by David Choo (Lower Sixth, Chatham). This was another assured and well memorised performance in which the sweep of the music carried all before it. Occasionally, the big moments over extended the piano’s comfortable dynamic but the intensity of the experience made for riveting listening. This was a challenging event for our young pianists, particularly for Jeffrey who was to play the Liszt 1st Concerto with Orchestra only a week later but the consistent quality of the performances and the fact that there were five young musicians contributing to the concert was an impressive indication of the quality of pianists at Stowe. The substantial audience were visibly impressed and the applause for all five musicians at the end was sustained and enthusiastic - rightly so.
Hilary Davan Wetton, Interim Chairman, Music Department