"I don't
think anyone would care about Horowitz's wrong notes. Ten wrong notes by him
don't count among 3000 right ones."
"The biggest
problem for the artist is to satisfy the audience. I never say to myself I
have to play better than him or her. I just have the feeling that I must
please the audience."
"I would
never put off a performance. I don't like cancelling unless you have 40-41
fever. Or if you can't breathe."
There may have been political excitement in the tally room last night, but
there was excitement of a different kind in Brisbane's packed Concert Hall.
Michael Edgley International made it possible for this audience to
marvel at the musical prowess of 17-year-old Greek concert pianist
Dimitris Sgouros.
The power at Sgouros' fingertips both musically
and physically was never for a moment in doubt.
Beethoven's 32
Variations in C Minor, the Fantasy in F Minor by Chopin,
Liszt's Mephisto Waltz and Transcendental Etude No. 3,
and Variations on a Theme of Paganini Books 1 and 2 are a
gruelling test of artistry and technique no matter whether the
pianist is 17 or 70.
This young artist's technical assurance gave
the music its full reign of expressive power, but always technique
was subordinated absolutely to musical instinct.
Sgouros'
performance of Beethoven was brilliant yet thoughtful.
I cannot recall coming away from a piano recital with
such a feeling of elation as I did from that given by the 17-year-old Dimitris
Sgouros. It was as if one had at last heard the pianist one had been waiting to
hear all one's life!
The F minor Fantasy of Chopin took us straight
into the salons with melting rubato (even, very convincingly, in the march). And
an infallible realisation of the import of harmonic progressions.
The first
Mephisto Waltz of Liszt proved an absolutely stunning experience - probably
the highlight in an evening full of highlights - while Paysage was
handled with great sensitivity.
WHAT secret is it that enables a Mozart or a Gauss to open those
hidden treasure houses of the mind which for the rest of us are
locked (or, more probably, just missing) and perform prodigious
feats which make other people look like children?
Dimitris Sgouros is no stranger
to such feats. Travelling to his New York debut at the ripe old age
of 12, he expected to play Tchaikovsky. Because of a program clash,
the conductor, distinguished Russian cellist Rostropovich, who has
done much to further Dimitris's career, wanted to change the
concerto. "Arriving at the airport," Dimitris explained, "he told
me, 'tomorrow morning you will be rehearsing the Rachmaninov third',
which I had previously only sight-read. The next night I performed
it for the first time." But with a grin and a bemused shrug he
admits he doesn't really like working this way.
Of such stories legends are made. Such legends light up
biographies of Mozart, Liszt and Paganini like bright, over-large
jewels. You feel ambivalent towards them. They are probably just
glass but how extraordinary if they are real. But it would need a
stronger sceptic than me to maintain, after meeting Dimitris Sgouros, that such things are not
possible. By an ironic twist his talents validate stories which you
had assumed to be myths, caught up in the web of greatness.
And the key? For Dimitris, all aspects of music emanate from a
single source. "Technique, maturity, personality, expression,
everything comes from, let's say, this special box which is called
'memories'.
"My father is a doctor and we've talked about it. From memory
everything starts and everything goes back there. If memory doesn't
give the right spirit, the right instruction, then there is
nothing."
Dimitris's memory is not confined to music. He speaks four
languages and learns mathematical formulae, passages from
literature, and whole opera libretti with the greatest of ease. This
is probably just as well. In a year in which he has celebrated his
first decade as an international artist, he has also had to finish
secondary and tertiary schooling and give his customary 40 recitals
a year all over the world. He receives enough invitations to fill up
every day of the year with concerts if he wanted to but he is keenly
aware of the problems of fatigue and burn-out. How much does he
practise?
"That depends - if you take just technique, almost nothing, but I
really work hard with my mind on the pieces and the score. If you
practise six or eight hours a day, I don't think you can give the
pieces freshness - you cannot give the public what you really feel,
you become a machine."
Dimitris rarely warms up before a performance. If he does he
might play through some of his beloved Italian operas, singing the
parts as he goes. When I spoke to him in Melbourne, he had just
completed a television recording of Liszt's dazzlingly difficult Don
Juan Fantasy. Unlike most modern recording sessions, there were no
cuts or retakes. He just sat down and played it.
With a repertoire which extends from Scarlatti to Cage,
Dimitris's special domain is the 19th century. His favourite
pianists are Rubinstein, Horowitz, Michelangeli and Richter but he
feels that Liszt was the greatest of them all. "All the Liszt works
are for me great pieces. I feel I can imagine what his playing was
like." The affinity is at once obvious and surprising. As with
Liszt, difficulty at the keyboard is unknown to him. But his
platform manner is the very opposite of Lisztian flamboyance. His
walk to the piano is simple almost to the point of awkwardness, and
his keyboard style free of any unnecessary gesture. One is simply
aware of a relaxed but unbreakable concentration.
But unlike Liszt, he doesn't compose and perhaps there lies the
rub. Is the demarcation dispute which has separated these roles in
the 20th century healthy for music? Dimitris shrugged: "I have to
accept that we are living in an epoch where the two things cannot be
successful at the same time." However, he points to distinguished
exceptions and does not rule out competition in the future. At the
moment his tastes tend to be conservative. Of contemporary Greek
composers, for example, he plays Skalkottas but Xenakis, as yet,
doesn't appeal.
What sort of teenager does such a lifestyle produce? If you feel
the hot house atmosphere might be bad for young health the answer is
reassuring. Dimitris wears his talent lightly with neither false
modesty nor false pride. It is a personality free of
over-sophistication and would be unique but not uncomfortable in
your local high school. Only when talking about music does an
intensity behind the eyes become apparent.
Though Dimitris's career to date would outflank the ambitions of
the most driving parents, Dimitris's are quiet and welcoming.
Brother, Costas, 11, and girlfriend are here. They go for walks,
play pinball (with Mozart it was billiards), make noise. The
naturalness of the family makes the brass and marble of Melbourne's
Hyatt seem rather pretentious.
And what advice can Dimitris, who achieved at 13 what most
pianists would be happy to achieve in a lifetime, give to young
performers. "Well, the only thing I wish them is luck. There are a
lot of genius-performers who have not made a career. Really luck is
all that is left."
IF you were allowed to use the word "genius'' only once
in a lifetime- and for critics this would probably be a good thing - you
would probably be safe to use it up on the 17-year-old Greek pianist Dimitris
Sgouros, who packed the Opera House Concert Hall on Friday night.
Who can predict the boundaries this talent will reach, which at 17 has
mastered enough repertoire for a dozen pianists and left the giants of the
musical world fumbling for superlatives?
Sgouros does not aim for a French polish finish but lets the grain of the
music show through, unblemished by artificiality or deliberate striving for
effect.
There are a simplicity and lack of pretension about his playing and, at its
best, the music simply flows with effortless ease, watched over by an
extraordinary concentration.
He has technique to burn and sometimes does just this, taking risks which
would derail the most courageous. Sometimes they derail him, such as at the end
of the Don Juan Fantasy, Liszt's hair-raising and, for some, ire-rising,
paraphrase on themes of Mozart's Don Giovanni. But this doesn't seem to
matter.
Here is a pianist who quite patently doesn't have to prove anything and will
risk not giving his best performance in order to try for an even better one.
Even those who feel that Liszt should be confined to Dante's Inferno for
tampering with Mozart, would have to agree that the demonic energy of the
performance was staggering.
SIX months ago Dimitris Sgouros was a stranger to most of Melbourne.
Now he is practically a household name.
This third appearance by the 17-year-old Greek wonder in as many
weeks again hit the audience right between the eyes, forcing some of
them to stand and clap their hearts out even at the halfway mark.
Here was another dazzling display of talent, but this time there
was something more.
This time Sgouros used Bach, Beethoven and Liszt to outline his
versatility, then he summed up all his skills in an intelligent
keyboard conversation with Schumann, allowing mature musical
understanding to stand proudly alongside pure showmanship. It was
programming at its best.
Bach's Italian Concerto was handled with care. In the
allegro, Sgouros spun out the music so that it was almost song-like,
with each hand full of deliberate and in dividual clarity yet never
out of balance with its mate.
The slow movement was a triumph for the right hand.
Similar eloquence was applied to Beethoven's Sonata No 26 in E
flat major Op. 81a "Les Adieux", with the pianist pushing the
music to its subtle limits -burying himself in the emotion of the
slow movement, then launching headlong into the powerful finale.
There was just the right amount of pace and depth.
Liszt's astonishing Don Juan Grand Fantasy was a logical
progression. A rather crass pot-pourri of Mozart's opera Don
Giovanni, it served as the out-right crowd-pleaser at this
concert.
Again an almost possessed Sgouros took total control of the
keyboard, running, trilling and pounding until, from the audience's
point of view, both eye and ear could not keep up.
Then, after a catch-the-breath interval, Schumann's Etudes
Symphoniques Op.13 came as the pinnacle.
In the life of the music critic there are
performances that are very good and others which are not so good, but only very
rarely is there a concert which offers performances of such riveting brilliance
and consummate musicianship that even the critic is left searching for words to
do it justice.
Such a concert was that given by the 17-year-old genius of the piano,
Dimitris Sgouros, in the Canberra Theatre on Saturday night.
His recordings had provided some foretaste of his stupendous technical
accoutrements and his interpretive mastery, but they could not convey the impact
of his playing when heard live in the concert hall. Liszt's Mephisto Waltz,
one of the great virtuosic display pieces of piano literature, was thrown
off with unbelievable ease and assurance, its fiery cascades of notes played
with a control and accuracy that was staggering. Yet the quiet, reflective
beauty of Paysage from the same composer's set of Transcendental
Studies was just as effectively realised with playing of extraordinarily
fine tonal colouration.
It was not merely a program of virtuosic "lollipops" either, the three major
works all being large-scale compositions representing each of the three
composers at their most impressive. Sgouros opened with Beethoven's noble and
eloquent Thirty-two Variations in C minor given a masterly and searching
performance and followed this with Chopin's Fantasy in F minor, Op. 49.
This is one of Chopin's longest and most diverse works for piano solo and it
received a performance that balanced poetry with passion and brought its varying melodic elements
together in a realisation that was as eminently satisfying as it was sheer
pleasure to listen to.
In such a recital it is impossible to say that any one piece was the
highlight yet the final work, the Variations on a theme of Paganini, by
Brahms, seemed to top all that had gone before with what could only be called a
miracle of pianism.
This fiendishly demanding work, awesome in its formidable technical
structure, was played with such verve, power, clarity and amazing accuracy that
the listener was just left stunned. The octave glissando passages in Variation
13 of Book 1 were as clear as if they were merely single-note runs and the
exhausting double-notes in Variation 1 of Book 2 were played with seemingly
effortless ease.
It was playing of which one could say "I heard it, I saw it, but I still
can't believe it!". Most remarkable of all, beneath all the technical brilliance
the musical qualities of the work, were realised and conveyed with commanding
power. That it was accomplished by a 17-year-old is one of those miracles in
music that are unexplainable as they are rare.
After this demanding program Sgouros, showing no signs of exhaustion, played
three encores, the second of which, Liszt's Rigoletto Paraphrase, brought
the entire capacity audience to its feet in a thoroughly deserved standing
ovation.
Pianism of this quality is unique; those fortunate enough to hear Dimitris
Sgouros on Saturday night will not easily forget his playing. It was indeed a
night to remember.
PHENOMENAL is the key word. Dimitris Sgouros, whom I heard for the first time
at his second sold-out Sydney recital, is a phenomenon both in a
physiological and a musical sense.
His technique is incredible; it must be seen as well as heard.
What he can do with his fingers, quite apart from their effect on
the keyboard, is amazing. The sheer exhilaration of his playing can
bring an audience to the edge of its seats, and he cures coughing
more surely than any elixir. All this, and only 17 years old; it is
legitimate to wonder what the future holds for him.
He turned the impetuosity of youth into an artform for many of
the Paganini Variations by Brahms (both books) and brought a
scintillating brilliance as well as total accuracy to Liszt's
Mephisto Waltz No1. His incisive staccato notes, his breathlessly
rapid yet precise arpeggios, his command of dynamics were wonderful.
And yet the borderline between throwing new light on mainstream
music and subjecting it to eccentricities is not easily defined.
There were moments in Chopin's Fantasy in F minor and in the 32
Variations in C minor by Beethoven when the sudden emphasis of a
single note or a phrase, the unexpected spurt or slackening, drew
attention to the performer more than it said something plausible
about the music. Perhaps that is where the future can help.
You can't hurry up the future. Meanwhile, Dimitris Sgouros is the Greek equivalent of a
Wunderkind, and that is a very rare and valuable species.
BRAVO, bravissimo, Dimitris Sgouros. He is a giant among piano players, a master in any
company of musicians. The world of music has never needed him more than now. It has
tangled itself into a state of unprecedented disrespect for our noble art and has allowed
two generations of young people to grow up with half-baked notions about self-expression
and individual rights, leaving them vulnerable to the evil forces of commercialism which
seduce them into believing that their essentially domestic abilities warrant public
exhibition and even payment.
But such is the irresistible power of real music made by Sgouros, the epitome of a real
musician, thousands of musically deprived people need only a tiny celluloid taste of his
music to bring them in flocks to the real thing. He is incontrovertible proof of music's
absolute truths. There is no substitute for talent. He has a rare musical soul. Richly
endowed with many gifts, he is the archetypal natural musician, and only by being so could
he have accomplished so much in so little time. His hands fit the keyboard as though
custom-built, his memory has absorbed and holds available for instant, precise recall,
literally billions of notes, each with its own range of possibilities for weight and
color. His fine finger muscles are co-ordinated to a degree that lead him direct to the
innermost heart of his music.
The lucky 2000 who attended his two-hour concert were even more entranced by the
reality of him than by his promotions. From his opening bars, the audience assumed a
trance-like state of adulatory awe so intent, so still, that one snuffly breather intruded
like an avalanche. Sgouros's powers are superhuman and virtually unlimited. But it is not
necessary for almost every piece in his program to be a blockbuster, and while he is
well-advised to treat Beethoven sonatas with caution for the present, sets of variations
generally give little relief to player and audience from pianistic acrobatics. Beethoven's
prosy 32 Variations in C Minor are in themselves a pedagogic exercise and let Sgouros flex
his muscles for the main game. For technical brilliance, judgment of tonal contrasts,
sensitivity of phrasing and balance within and between sections as they related to overall
structure, the Chopin Fantasy in F Minor op. 49 and the demon-driven, pitchfork-powered
Mephisto Waltz No. 1 of Franz Liszt were flawless.
After interval, Sgouros conserved energy and built up adrenaline in his beautifully
contemplative countryside ramble along the lanes of Liszt's Paysage - Transcendental Etude
No. 3. Liszt, Chopin, middle period Beethoven - all music for youth, if not usually for
boys. But the inexhaustibly inventive imagination and superlative technique Brahms poured
without stint into his two books of Variations - 32 of them in all - on A Theme of
Paganini op. 35 are strictly men only. Or were, until Sgouros. Dazzling technical
displays, feats of strength, octave glissandi, octave trills, delicate, fanciful waltzes,
music box tinklings, melancholy and glee, despair and whimsy - the more complex the
processes were the more he revelled in deciphering them. Always cool and aware of the need
for complete control, he applied his own brakes around number 25, meting out his resources
carefully to complete this marathon with the same dignity that he began it.
That should have been enough for him and for us, but he gave us three encores - two
Liszt, one Albeniz - anyway.
Once again
this young musician showed the depth and range of his astonishing
technique in the most forcible manner.
Agility, fine and firm
pedalling, masterly control of the keyboard in each of its aspects,
thundering octaves and double-octaves delivered at a speed too fast
for conscious planning, a speed at which you must let the trained
instinct take over - everything was there, and applied just as
needed.
But there was more to it than this. There was a sense of
judgment still developing but already unmistakeable.
I hinted in
an earlier review that I thought only time would turn Sgouros into one of the
world's great pianists.
I still believe this to be true.
But this is not to
deny the thoughtful and very musical planning which went into shaping the works
on Friday's program, the first two especially.
He played Bach's 'Italian'
concerto extremely deliberately, not always with a perfect balance of treble and
bass tone, but with a style which did much to evoke the harpsichord quality
beneath the tone of the piano and to set the music back where it belonged.
So
often a modern virtuoso will play the work with a tone that is all Steinway and
a touch better suited to Chopin. The focus of Sgouros's playing was quite
different, and his accurate definition of the ornaments was remarkably pleasant.
The 'Les Adieux' sonata of Beethoven had quite a cool, judicious and effective
performance, again not without problems of balance. Part of the second subject
of the opening movement, for instance, tended to disappear into the maw of a
fairly powerful left hand.
The playing in the 'Don Giovanni' fantasy of Liszt
was tremendous stuff, as the music itself is cascades and torrents of notes
pushed to the outer limit of virtuosity and often threatening to fall over the
edge into the grandest kind of chaos, but always curbed at the last moment by
the pianist's iron nerve.
You would have to be made of lead not to be excited
by this kind of playing, which was almost as much of a sporting event as a
musical performance.
But of the whole program I most enjoyed the playing of
Schumann's 'Etudes symphoniques', given with polished reticent tact and great
tenderness.
Sgouros will repeat this program in Perth next Thursday night.
In
many years of concertgoing, I cannot recall a more stunning instance of musical
precocity than that of Dimitris Sgouros, soloist with the WA Symphony Orchestra
in his Australian debut at the Concert Hall.
At 17, he brings to his
performance the authority and insight of a mature master.
To be sure, this is
not unique but it is certainly rare. One can find parallels with, say, Yehudi
Menuhin - whose teenage recording of Elgar's Violin Concerto is still a
high-water mark - and with pianist Ruth Slenczynska, who gave major recitals in
Paris when she was seven.
Sgouros' technical facility is astonishing. He
negotiates some of the most hazardous musical terrains with awesome ease and
assurance.
Tchaikowsky's Concert Fantasy For Piano and Orchestra, for
instance, is a work of only modest intrinsic worth, but its formidable
difficulties make it forbidden territory for all but the most dextrous of
pianists.
Suffice to say, Sgouros romped through it, and in the process (and
this is another aspect of his great gifts) made this trashy piece, by the
persuasiveness of his artistry, sound much better than it really is.
Another
feature of Sgouros' mature approach is his complete avoidance of virtuosity for
its own sake. There was no hint of playing to the gallery.
Even at its most
brilliant, one felt this agility, which can so easily degenerate into a flashy
display, was a means to an end only.
It is this which places the teenage
Sgouros in the front rank and at an age when most aspirants to a concert career
are still cutting their musical teeth.
Vladimir Verbitsky led WASO through
fine accompaniments, alert to every nuance of Sgouros' playing in both the
Fantasy and Liszt's Piano Concerto No 2 in A.
The piano
does strange things to Dimitris Sgouros. It transforms a shy youth
into a mature adult.
Sgouros fever hit Melbourne again at the
weekend at the 17-year-old's first concert hall recital.
And
perhaps the only complaint this performance warranted was that its
sheer intensity was too much to absorb in such a short period.
The
almost unbelievable display Sgouros gave Franz Liszt's Mephisto
Waltz alone would have satisfied me.
Like a good sportsman
stroking a ball, Sgouros plays through the notes extracting maximum
value for his effort. He never hammers the keys and his transitions
from forte to pianissimo or even mezzo forte
are never exaggerated. They come naturally, be they caught up in the
Mephisto frenzy or in the sedate elegance of Liszt's Etude No 3
or Chopin's Fantasy in F minor Op 49.
The talent
continued to flow thick and fast, concluding with Brahms'
Variations on a Theme by Paganini Op 35 (Books 1 and 2).
That this was an extraordinary concert there
can be no doubt at all. The program and the performers promised a great
evening's listening. The fulfilment of that promise can be regarded as ranging
from below expectation to way beyond.
Verbitsky amply fulfilled expectations.
His musical intentions in relation to the Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures at an
Exhibition and the Capriccio Espagnol of Rimsky-Korsakov were absolutely valid
and satisfying.
The funny thing was that the orchestra's response was very
uneven. There were some excellent stretches but there were also times when one
felt that, although the MSO seemed to be trying its hardest, the playing was
quite simply not the high standard of which it is capable.
It really was a
great pity because one could not escape the feeling that here was a golden
opportunity missed. Pictures is an orchestral showpiece and, with Verbitsky
conducting, the performance should have been more successful.
Verbitsky was an
excellent partner for Dimitris Sgouros in the Rachmaninov Third Piano Concerto
after the interval. It can be stated straight away that this was a phenomenal
performance. Rachmaninov, if he is aware of what is going on, must be beside
himself with delight (a very hard thing to visualise!) at the realisation that
here is someone who can play his concertos at the speeds he himself did and,
with the degree of accuracy he attained.
Sgouros's depth of musicianship is
<illegible word> and totally convincing. Indeed, his playing style could be described as
"quiet" - to look at, at any rate.
At times we could have done with more tone
from the piano - the orchestra overpowered it in big climaxes and also,
strangely enough, in the first few minutes. Then, I must say, I could have done
with the great climax to the first movement cadenza being played in the correct
rhythm. Those crashing pairs of chords in alternating high and low registers did
not come out evenly and, for a good 20 bars or so, the time signature might have
been 12/8(?) rather than 4/4.
I must repeat, though, that this was a phenomenal
performance. And Sgouros then played three encores as if they were the first
things he had played that evening.
The roving - and I mean roving - television
camera on the platform was an unbelievable disturbance. One wonders how anyone
could conceive that in ordering such a thing they would not destroy the
audience's chance for total concentration.
Young Greek pianist Dimitris Sgouros demonstrated at the Concert
Hall on Saturday evening that he possesses at least one extra factor
not usually within the grasp of international competition winners.
His playing is instinctive to a remarkable degree, and does not bear
the unmistakable stamp of his teachers.
The keyboard stance is
quietly perfect, and his approach to the music unassuming, with no
trace of the flamboyant virtuoso.
Playing of integrity and
maturity rather than overpowering brilliance showed to the full in
Liszt's A major Concerto, and Sgouros correctly placed the emphasis
of his interpretation on the work's quieter sections, delivered
unfailingly with a beautifully rounded touch quality.
Here, and in
Tchaikovsky's Concert Fantasy, conductor Vladimir Verbitsky and the
West Australian Symphony Orchestra gave the soloist full support.
Sgouros squeezed the last expressive drop from the Fantasy's calmer
moments, and clean brilliance here and in his final extra piece was
delivered with awesome certainty.
One hopes that this unusually
gifted performer may remain unspoilt by his over-eulogistic
publicity.
The volatile Verbitsky seemed determined to hypnotise
his willing audience from the start with sheer speed.
His now
almost obligatory Russian and Ludmilla Overture streaked through the
Concert Hall, managing to get even faster in the coda.
Thereafter
it was the colourful delights of Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio
Espagnol, with brilliant violins led by Robert Cooper.
Effective
woodwind voices added to the colour and gaiety, culminating in a
frenetic finale.
Gifted Greek pianist Dimitris Sgouros is master of the ivory - but what is he really
like?
STEPHEN KIRBY reports
THE image of the crisply attired concert pianist Dimitris Sgouros, poised at the ivory
ready to enchant, is one with which many discerning concert goers will be familiar. It
seemed, then, an interesting challenge to probe beneath the exterior of the world renowned
pianist. Does he ever feel that life has passed him by? Does he ever yearn, as might an
Australian 19 year old, to flee the concert hall and throw himself into the tumultuous
surf? The answer, it would seem, is no.
When you pry behind the persona of the polished musician, you simply find another
polished musician. But this is no more than one might have expected; after all, as the
film Dimitris at 14 revealed, this was a boy whose hands unconsciously manipulated an
imaginary keyboard even when he was supposed to be sunbathing. This extraordinary
obsession with music has led to a career which has already dwarfed many contemporary
pianists. As a result, the promoter has an unusual problem - how to accommodate all the
superlatives.
At his tender age, Sgouros has gained the sort of reviews most pianists would kill for.
In what amounted to a virtual laying on of hands, the dying Rubinstein heard him play and
called him "the best pianist I have ever heard". (Sgouros himself said modestly,
"I have been lucky enough to have already had many special moments in my career, but
I think that was one of the most memorable".)
Rostropovich, who conducted him at the age of 12 in Rachmaninoff's Third Piano
Concerto, called him a "miracle - a creation from God". On his first tour here
in 1987, critics competed with each other to find new superlatives: "a rare musical
soul", "staggering", "the pianist one had been waiting for all one's
life" - even "the critic is left searching for words to do it justice".
In what is a first for the tour of a classical performer in Australia, promoter Michael
Edgley has released a CD of Sgouros's 1987 solo performances here in Melbourne
(MEI-CD-42427-A). What those of us lucky to have heard him two years ago probably remember
best is the great romantic verve and seemingly effortless ease of his playing. Those
qualities certainly appear clearly in this recording, particularly in Chopin's Fantasy in
F Minor and Schumann's Etudes Symphoniques. The CD also shows his breadth of style and his
great classical control, perhaps best displayed in Beethoven's 32 Variations in C Minor.
Since 1987 Sgouros has simply added to his already massive global reputation with
performances around the world. In Athens last September he gave his first performance with
Russia's Yevgeni Svetlanov and the USSR State Symphony Orchestra as a small contribution
to glasnost.
I spoke to him by phone in Athens last week and found him well mannered to a fault. His
musical tastes are eclectic: "I do have favorites and I'm playing several on this
tour. But I think performing music is like being an actor. In order to do his best work
for the public, an actor must try to like whatever part he is playing, so if I am
performing a piece, I am determined to like it. So I am very fond of the late romantics,
but then I also love playing Mozart, Beethoven, Bach. As for the modern repertoire - it
depends what you mean by modern. Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartok, yes - but perhaps we can
no longer consider them as moderns. I am still coming to terms with the more extreme
moderns, but there are some composers, such as Cage, whose works I enjoy performing."
Sgouros also has a "passionate interest" in Verdi and Puccini operas (he also
is said to hero worship Maria Callas, one of the few Greeks to have made a similar
impression on world music). So I asked him whether the lyrical and dramatic qualities of
these works had left any influence on his playing. "It's hard to explain; in a way I
think all music is singing. For a pianist technique is important, of course, but it is the
singing I want to bring out in the music I play. And now we have these very good
recordings of the great vocal operas - Bellini, Verdi, Puccini - it is possible to learn
from them." His wide-ranging tastes in music extend to performers as well. "I
think you can learn something from all the good pianists, because they all have different
personalities, but my favorite would have to be the great older pianists - particularly
Horowitz and Richter. And Liszt - I know that sounds strange because obviously it's not
possible to have heard him play, but it is possible to be influenced by the impression of
his playing you can derive from his music."
And, presumably for mere relaxation, Sgouros studies mathematics at Athens University.
"I have to admit that my music tends to cut into my study time." As a final
demonstration of his perfect manners, Sgouros declared that he was "very much looking
forward to seeing Australia again. The schedule will allow me time for sight-seeing, and
since it is summer this time, I'm sure the weather will be much better." Given the
very great pleasure he will undoubtedly bring to thousands in Australia, one can only hope
he is right.
** Such was the demand for
the 1987 Melbourne recital CD reviewed above, that Dimitris Sgouros recorded a
second Australian album in 1989 with live performances of Chopin and Liszt
culled from his Melbourne Concert Hall and Sydney Opera House appearances.
This second album has been released on cassette, LP and CD
LP edition
Cassette
edition
CD edition
Some
of the performances featured in the 1987 and 1989 albums are now available for
free downloading from
http://www.sgourosmp3.com
CONCERT: DIMITRIS SGOUROS (piano) with the WASO and
VERBITSKY (conductor)
Perth Concert Hall, February 1
Wednesday's
program devoted its entire second half to the pianistic mastery of
Dimitris Sgouros, but the evening started with the limelight firmly
on conductor Vladimir Verbitsky and the West Australian Symphony
Orchestra (concert master Robert Cooper).
Their Tchaikovsky Fourth
Symphony essayed dramatic and emotional heights on the grand scale
in a performance which had tremendous conviction and impressive
tautness of ensemble.
Verbitsky set the pace in the opening
movement, with its powerful brass climaxes and stirring repetitions
of the fanfare motive which lies at this movement's heart.
Later
movements featured melancholy, tender and sweeping melodies, with
the noisy and exuberant finale's onrush unleashed right on the heels
of the previous movement, to great effect.
Starting any romantic
symphony from cold is a tall order, but the orchestra coped
excellently, with its increased numbers paying obvious dividends.
Perhaps the most outstanding impression of Sgouros' playing of the
solo part in the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 2 was his attention
to the work's lyrical and dramatic elements.
This is far from
being merely a display piece, and the young soloist had its measure
all the way, showing an acute awareness of its musical needs.
His
accompaniments to solo orchestral themes were noteworthy for their
sensitivity, and the slow movement's appealing melodies made a great
impression, while the finale's verve and brilliance showed to
glittering effect.
Keyboard clarity never faltered, however hot
the pace, with orchestra and conductor collaborating to an unusual
degree throughout the concerto, which culminated in a powerful and
long, drawn-out conclusion.
This young man's rare quality of
pianism embraces a huge range of virtuosity, invariably tempered by
sensitivity, and this shows especially in this extra solos.
The
occasion was notable for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra's
numerical increase, which in its turn led to a more robust and
flexible sound.
Photos:With Vladimir
Verbitsky - rehearsal and performance of the Rachmaninov 2nd Piano Concerto in
Perth Concert Hall
Fine dining: Sgouros and
Maestro Verbitsky sample Perth culinary delights
IF those who ought to know can even be partially believed, I met
a genius late last week.
As arranged, early Thursday evening I waited in the foyer of the
Intercontinental Hotel in Sydney for the child piano prodigy who
had, by 17, become, according to the great cellist and conductor
Rostropovich "a miracle -a creation from God".
In circumstances such as this, one conjures up all sorts of
images.
They were soon to be shattered.
Out of the lift, at 100 miles an hour, like an errant schoolboy
looking under threat of punishment for his lost homework assignment,
stepped a 19-year-old who looked only 19.
He thrust out a hand and said simply, without any affectation:
"I'm Dimitris Sgouros."
Yet the very mention of the name now stirs every music critic
around the world either into superlatives or into an admission of
linguistic inadequacy in assessing Sgouros's musical worth.
One critic in 1987 said: "If you were allowed to use the word
'genius' only once in a lifetime, you would probably be safe to use
it on the 17-year-old Greek pianist, Dimitris Sgouros."
Only under questioning did he volunteer unwillingly and
embarrassedly that he graduated from Athens Conservatory at 13 with
a Gold Medal; that he graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in
London a year later, with the highest marks ever awarded in the
academy's history; that he never practises (said with a laugh); that
he knows all the operas of Verdi and Puccini off by heart ("I have
to if I want to be a conductor").
When the formal side of the interview was over, he resumed his
free spirit, boundlessly so.
Hotel porters and staff moved about him oblivious of the fact
that they were in the presence of someone whose consummate mastery
of technical skill may not be heard again.
"Which CDs of mine have you got?" he asked.
I had to admit I couldn't remember.
Even if I had been able to couch my embarrassment in Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian, Greek, or German, instead of English, he would
still have learnt of my Philistine memory.
He speaks them all, fluently.
I kept thinking that here was a young man more gifted and less
temperamental, more assured, yet less extraverted about his ability,
than any I had met in any field.
"Time to eat," he said. "I'm starved."
Good 19-year-old talk.
We were joined for dinner by Reuben Fineberg, classical music
director of Michael Edgley International, who bring such fabulous
talent to us so often.
We sat next to a table of smokers.
Newcastle City Council, determined to ban smoking in its
restaurants, would have found no fault with the Intercontinental.
We moved to a non-smoker's room. Dimitris confessed to smoking,
sometimes, even though dad is a doctor.
There is a pride in his parents, a ready acknowledgment
of the sacrifices made by the rest of his non-musical
family.
He has a 13-year-old brother, he told me, "who has no parents".
He was not embarrassed to effortlessly relate the sacrifices
necessary for success and the good fortune he enjoyed in having
parents who made them.
"I don't do anything," he said, "just play".
"Mum does it all - contracts, recording studios and bookings."
Mum was too tired to join us for dinner.
The waiter arrived.
For entree, "A pasta?", Dimitris mused aloud.
"A small helping?", asked an obliging waiter.
"Why not a large one?" said the 19-year-old with an appetite that
matches his genius.
Then followed the biggest hamburger, a fried egg atop, and
everything that normally goes with it.
"Why don't you eat the salad?" I asked.
"Can't, I'm on a diet."
We talked about everything from the Olympic Games to Sydney's
pollution and he was interested in the lot.
German audiences are the best in the world, Horowitz was better
than Rubinstein, and the Olympic Games should be held in Athens, but
only for the Greeks, he said, rolling his head back and laughing.
If this is genius, and if this is the unspoiled way in which it
expresses itself, may Greece send us more of its like.
DIMITRIS Sgouros: Pianist, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, CD (MEI Records)
DIMITRIS Sgouros commands an immaculate technique, but nothing that he does is merely
pianistic. This compact disc, recorded by the ABC in the Melbourne Concert Hall in 1987
for MEI (Michael Edgley International), is splendidly recorded. It has excellent
annotations by Jonathan Cook and if anything is even better played.
Sgouros, the brilliant young Greek pianist, has pondered the significance of
Beethoven's directions and the 32 Variations in C Minor are an example of the finest
playing, which touches directly the composer's creative nerve. The Fantasy in F Minor Op.
49 and Nocturne in C Minor Op. 48 No 1 have poetry as well as virtuosity. Sgouros' Chopin
interpretation is filled with the most exquisite and exciting effects.
His playing of Schumann's Etudes Symphoniques
Op. 13 is extremely searching, as he matches piano techniques to the demands of
the several etudes or variations.
Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No 1 is a vehicle for the pianist's technical brilliance and
yielding romantic warmth.
Sgouros will perform at the Concert Hall, Performing Arts Complex, on February 14 with
the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Verbitsky, and in a solo recital
on February 16.
CONSIDERING that Dimitris Sgouros has 45 piano concertos at his
fingertips, it seemed distinctly reactionary that he was asked to
play Tchaikovsky in B Flat Minor at his only Sydney concert with
orchestra (in Melbourne, he plays Brahms 2 and Rachmaninov 2).
End of quibbling. The justification came with the performance.
He played that hoary crowd-pleaser as marvellously as his
international reputation and his 1987 appearances here have entitled
us to expect.
It is practically lopsided or superfluous to heap special praise
on any single aspect of his playing. All of it is so meritorious,
and so wonderfully balanced.
If I state that he played Tchaikovsky with the luminous clarity
usually thought ideal for Mozart (whom Tchaikovsky adored), this
might imply a restraint of power.
No such thing: this was pianism of tremendous power where
appropriate, and elsewhere a touch as delicate as the landing of a
butterfly on a petal.
The cadenzas blazed like fireworks; poetic lyricism motivated the
pastoral section of the andantino.
Once or twice, an instantaneous mutual adjustment of tempo
between the soloist and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, directed by
Stuart Challender, became more noticeable than it would have had
there been more rehearsal, but otherwise this was a perfect
collaboration.
The last memorable reading of this concerto to have been given
here was the exuberantly hectic one by Bernd Glemser in the finals
of the 1985 Piano Competition.
Dimitris Sgouros was less
volcanic, more intrinsically musical. That his technique was
immaculate goes without saying.
The first half of this concert also deserves acclaim.
Stuart Challender has already established great empathy with the
SSO; if he needs to reinforce it by a visual emission of energy, so
be it.
Untidy entries, not so long ago the scourge of the orchestra,
were all but eliminated.
The brilliantly orchestrated Capriccio Espagnol by
Rimsky-Korsakov had its flamenco Cossacks pounding out their rhythms
with exciting verve, and Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, which has
become the Swan Lake of the 20th century with regard to musical
familiarity, was on the one hand polished and disciplined, and on
the other imbued with a spiralling tension.
But the chief distinction of this concert came by way of a
potential Gold Medal pianist.
THE great Arthur Rubinstein called him the greatest pianist in the world. Famous Soviet
musician Rostropovich hailed him as "a miracle." But 19-year-old Greek pianist
Dimitris Sgouros says he doesn't listen when people call him as a genius - "I just
concentrate on playing". His brief, but extraordinary, career has taken him to
Carnegie Hall, New York, the Royal Festival Hall, London, and, for the second time, the
Concert Hall, Melbourne. Dimitris accepts his many accolades with a shrug: "I think I
have musical talent, but I'm not that special.".
He began playing the piano when he was six. Eighteen months later he was offered a
scholarship at the Athens Conservatorium of Music. He graduated in 1982, and went on to
study mathematics at Athens University, in which he showed outstanding ability. He is
fluent in English, Spanish, Portugese, Italian, German and his native Greek and has
memorised more than 45 concertos and hundreds of solo works. Despite all these
achievements, Dimitris believes there is room for improvement, and hopes one day to become
a conductor.
IT is not uncommon to categorise extraordinarily impressive
musical performers as primarily musician or technician. When
Dimitris Sgouros was first heard
here as a 17-year-old in 1987, he was a phenomenon, if not strictly
a prodigy. But a few knowledgeable people (although not the
critics) were inclined to marvel only at his technique.
Now a mature young man of 19, he is an artist whose future
development is guaranteed by his present achievement.
Sgouros began his second
Australian tour under Michael Edgley's aegis with Tchaikovsky's
first piano concerto. The Sydney Town Hall was full on February 4
for his concert in association with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra,
conducted by Stuart Challender.
By exemplifying the paradox "less is more" in the Tchaikovsky, he
withdrew his formidable technical prowess from consideration of
which area constitutes his primary gift. All the notes in their
correct places, with due emphasis, were part of the data, the given.
From that starting point he began to make music unostentatiously,
but with a deep, committed, disciplined passion.
Those who have not heard Sgouros play may be forgiven if they
regard him as a superior Liberace, in the way that many thought of
Gigli as a higher grade Mario Lanza. The truth could hardly be more
different. I know no first rate pianist who is more still in
performance. Perhaps Tamas Vasary in the 1960s used his elbows as
little, but he swayed occasionally in the manner of normal pianists.
Not so Sgouros.
The playing is as firmly centred as the physical presence. (If he
were not seated one could call it his stance.) There was a good deal
less torque generated between orchestra and soloist in the opening
bars than one hears in any other performance of this concerto; none
of the rocking sensation induced by the big piano chords.
If Sgouros had simply failed to
meet standard expectations, the performance would have been
significantly less impressive. What he did that was special was to
treat a concert hall warhorse as though it were real music. He
explored the cadenzas as though they were by Schumann - in the style
of Tchaikovsky, of course. He raised the stakes in the work's less
showy passages, until they were at least as important, and thus as
memorable as all the bits that everyone can whistle. Tchaikovsky was
well served.
I suspect that this concerto would not be the one that Sgouros would take to a desert island,
if he were allowed only one or two. On the other hand, if I were
marooned and told to take one performance of this work, it might
well be his that I would want to live with.
Stuart Challender and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra were more
than accompanists; they supplied the colour, much of it refracted
from the piano's pure shafts, and they added a good deal of the
energy essential to this concerto, the score of which contains no
surprises.
A feel for rubato that seemed very like what one reads of the
19th Century virtuosi occasionally found the soloist infinitesimally
behind the beat. On other occasions not even the looming presence of
Stuart Challender, turned almost wholly towards the piano, was able
to bring to chording the precision of the recording studio. These
technical points, tiny blemishes perhaps, really identify a
performance like this as live in every sense.
The orchestra was supreme in Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio
Espagnol, and progressed after an indifferent start to a commanding
reading of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. It is not to demean the
orchestra's contribution to a memorable evening when I confess that
I can hardly wait to hear Sgouros
in recital. Most of his appearances around the country this month
and next are solo recitals.
VERBITSKY SHOWS HIS
MASTERY OF BALANCE
THE AGE, MON 13 FEB 1989
By: KENNETH HINCE
"Sgouros' touch was veiled and
reserved... he used the velvet glove rather than the metallic clang..."
From time to time we are privileged to hear pianism which creates an entirely new sense
of wonder and enrichment. And for those who feel that there are only so many black and
white keys, or a finite number of sounds to work with, Dimitris Sgouros' recital on
Thursday night must have come as a colorful and infinitely subtle surprise.
Busoni's transcription of Bach's Chaconne in D Minor from the Partita for Unaccompanied
Violin loses nothing of the grandeur of the original music, and it was this majesty that
Sgouros conveyed in a powerful performance combining dynamism and tension. Schumann's
Carnaval was so vividly characterised that it became a brilliant balletic panorama.
Dazzlingly vivacious in the more extravert moments, Sgouros was marvellously lyrical in
the miniatures, Chopin Eusebius, where his beautiful tone proved an asset. Technically
perfect, he has yet to completely probe the soul of Schumann's music.
The legendary atmosphere in Chopin's Ballade No 1 in G Minor was immediately created in
delicate opening bars later transformed into outbursts of passionate declamation and
triumphant song. There was no superficial charisma here. Sgouros' quality is reserved
solely for the business of piano playing; his virtuosity is so remarkable because it is so
musical.
Balakirev, the guiding force of the ""Russian Five'', breathes nationalism in
his piano fantasy, Islamey, based on Caucasian dances and Armenian song. Sgouros'
interpretation of Islamey was a tour de force of turbulent romanticism. This pianist seems
to approach each task with a diligence and interpretative freedom that is wholly
exceptional.
TO SAY Dimitris Sgouros is a
marvellous pianist for a 19-year-old, as some people do, is to add
an irrelevancy to an obvious fact.
Age has nothing to do with it, and in any case, musicians, unlike
wine, do not necessarily get better with seniority.
It is just possible that Sgouros is now at his best. He may
eventually find the piano restrictive, and follow the likes of
Barenboim, Bishop-Kovacevich and Ashkenazy, turning to the baton.
Meanwhile, he radiates both satisfaction and excitement. His
playing had an element of daring in it for the Liszt sonata, which
he polished off in 27 instead of the usual 30 minutes; yet there was
no feeling of impatience or coolness, and the digital fleetness
spoke of sparkle, not blur.
Gaspard de la Nuit, by Ravel, requires an interchange of
virtuosity and delicacy; both were abundantly present as Ondine
turned to a scintillating shower, the bell tolled obsessively for Le
Gibet, and Scarbo showed mischief and menace. Chopin's Andante
Spianato and Grand Polonaise could have allowed themselves more
romantic liberty.
My only disappointment came with the programs themselves; they
were excessively conventional, looking much like a syllabus for some
piano competition. That might have been the promoter's fault, in aid
of full houses
Next time - soon, we hope - Dimitris Sgouros should bring us an ingredient of
musical novelty to add to his pianistic prowess.
We may not hear him again this year, but we will see him when he
is one of three adjudicators for the David Paul Landa Memorial Piano
Scholarship here in May.
THE playing of Dimitris Sgouros gets more extraordinary by the
minute -and since he is still only 19, every minute counts.
The combination of sensitivity and vigour that he brings to the
work of a composer like Chopin gives the music a life of its own.
His lightness of touch has a crispness that elevates even the
schmaltzy arrangement of one of his encores on Thursday night at the
Sydney Opera House. Yet he also brings weight and substance to the
keyboard.
His technical virtuosity is not only impressive in itself but a
well-honed tool by which his interpretations can be brought more
clearly to the listener. It's astonishing to hear the balanced
control that his two hands bring to a familiar work, giving the
melodic line a clear run through the complex decorative writing
around it and shaping the piece so persuasively and intelligibly.
It was a delight to hear him in two recitals that offered a range
of musical styles. Bach, even after the Busoni treatment, and
Scarlatti obviously aren't as close to his heart, though he delivers
them with polished finesse.
Sgouros seems to have more of
an empathy with the romance of Chopin, the theatricality of
Schumann's Carnaval, the exotica of Balakirev's Islamey and Liszt's
exhilarating pyrotechnics mingled with lyrical interludes. This is
great concert material, as so many pianists have demonstrated. But
when Sgouros plays, it's like
hearing them for the first time.
Australian audiences are indebted to Michael Edgley International
for bringing Dimitris Sgouros here
twice in his formative years. I, for one, can hardly wait for the
next stage in his artistic maturity.
Musica Viva, which made a grand start to its concert year with
the Monteverdi Choir, kept up the standard in a very different style
this week with the Quartetto Beethoven di Roma.
There is an almost tangible feeling of communication between
these musicians which gives a special quality of performing vitality
to their piano quartet repertoire.
On Tuesday at the Seymour Centre, the program began with youthful
compositions by Schubert and Richard Strauss which responded well to
the freshness of their approach.
The Strauss Quartet in C minor, completed in the composer's 20th
year, was particularly enjoyable for the indications it gave of the
individuality that would stamp his larger compositions in the
future. The richness and vigour of the opening movement was matched
by music of translucent beauty in the third.
The Schumann Quartet in E major could be regarded as a more
accomplished piece of writing that emerged with a well-burnished
polish to round off an evening that had many insights to offer.
IT was interesting to sample the Darling Harbour Convention
Centre as a concert venue last weekend when the Polish singer, Ewa
Demarczyk, gave the first musical performance within in
still-unfinished walls.
She is a performer with forceful theatrical power and a voice
that ranges from an intimate whisper to a fortissimo roar of
passionate intensity. No matter if you didn't understand the
language, it was a gripping recital with unusual musicality in the
backing group of two pianos, two violins, cello, bass, guitar and
percussion.
Of course, it was all delivered through amplification, but tests
are going to be carried out on the natural acoustics of the venue,
which holds up to 3,500 people. If they prove to be good, Sydney
might have a more aesthetically appealing alternative to the
Entertainment Centre for some of its big musical attractions.
$70,000 Steinway piano autographed
by Dimitris Sgouros - raffle to be drawn by Margaret Whitlam (wife of Prime Minister
Gough Whitlam)
TEMPERAMENT in prosperity and adversity characterised last
week's orchestral music-making.
At the Opera House on Tuesday night the USSR State Symphony
Orchestra enjoyed the double good fortune of having Dimitris Sgouros as soloist and a capacity
audience of doting fans.
Twenty-four hours later it was the turn of the Sydney Symphony
Orchestra in the same hall to show fortitude in twin adversities,
which caused the concert to run over time by half an hour.
Sgouros and Rachmaninov's
Second Piano Concerto seemed made for each other. The Greek
teen-aged phenomenon made one of the most popular concertos in the
repertoire seem new in many respects.
Gone was the stillness of his performance of Tchaikovsky No.1
with the Sydney Orchestra in February. He found the temperament that
the music demanded, injecting passion into his always note-perfect
playing, and never reducing the work to the thumping display piece
it can so easily become.
Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony received from Yevgeni Svetlanov and
the orchestra the treatment one would expect for a concerto for
orchestra. The usually prodigious brass again demonstrated loudness
without distortion of tone or pitch; there was a filigree in sound
from the upper woodwinds displaying tantalisingly delicate beauty;
the power of the lower strings was again evident.
It was a far more satisfying concert than the Russians' first in
Sydney on May 10, and the crowd was ecstatic.
Wednesday was the SSO's night in the Opera House, and it was
memorable. After about a quarter of an hour's sweet-toned playing of
the first movement of the Brahms Violin Concerto, young German
soloist Frank Peter Zimmermann caught the end of his bow under the E
string, which stretched and went nearly a tone flat. He stopped and
calmly went back to the beginning of the work, ultimately completing
an unruffled performance of great lyric beauty.
I confess that the Brahms has a special emotional impact for me,
as it was the first of the great violin concertos that I heard.
Others play it more strongly than Zimmermann, but I was grateful for
the almost feminine singing tone of his Stradivarius, partnered by
Stuart Challender, who had the orchestra playing sensitively without
self-effacement.
A significant number of subscribers did not return after interval
to hear the first performance of David Lumsdaine's Mandala VI. There
are passages in the work that would almost confirm the aversion of
the conservatives to contemporary music of the "plink plonk"
variety. Rhythms and harmonies that are irregular can sound erratic
to some ears, but everyone who stayed must have warmed to the static
central section which Lumsdaine calls a chorale.
Instead of being propelled forward in a linear movement, the
music of the chorale explores a series of textures with varying
densities. The effect is of undulation within a kind of stasis.
As though being penalised for keeping the best till last, the
orchestra faced another significant delay while the principal oboist
replaced a defective instrument before Janacek's wholly marvellous
Sinfonietta could start.
Topped and tailed by a brass fanfare of ear-cracking ruggedness,
the work transforms itself into a light, delicate proof that agile,
deft and refreshing orchestral writing was still issuing from
Czechoslovakia in the late 1920s. The Sinfonietta should be
compulsory listening for all who think that the tradition ended
earlier.
What a night it was for
Canberra music lovers in Llewellyn Hall last night when one of the world's
finest pianists joined one of the world's great orchestras in a stunning
performance of the
world's favourite piano concerto.
The 19-year-old piano virtuoso. Dimitris Sgouros, played with breathtaking
brilliance in a realisation of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto in
which he was supported by equally brilliant and poetic playing from the visiting
USSR State Symphony Orchestra under the dynamic direction of conductor, Vladimir
Verbitsky. There was grandeur in the rolling phrases of the great introductory
section, followed by a stirring performance of the first movement, this then
leading to a warm and poetic unfolding of the central andantino semplice.
But it was the final movement which set the performance afire, Sgouros led off
at a spanking pace, and his fast octave passages were a marvel to hear for their
speed and clarity, while the orchestra matched him by playing Tchaikovsky as
only a Russian orchestra can.
The program opened with six Tchaikovsky songs, sung expressively by Bolshoi
Opera principal Tamara Sinyavskaya. She has a warm, rich, velvet-toned voice,
which particularly suited the well-known None But the Lonely Heart, which
opened the set, and the warmly romantic Does the Day Reign?.
The final work of the program was the Symphony No. 1 in D minor of
Rachmaninov, a powerful and expressive work. It is an ideal work to show off a
fine orchestra, and Verbitsky urged and cajoled playing to match its moods from
the 100 players of the USSR State Symphony. The violins of the orchestra were
seated as they were in the 19th century — the first violins to the conductor's
left and the second violins to his right — not all lumped together as is usual
today. This gave a fine spread of upper string sound, particularly in the warmly
romantic third movement. And the stirring finale, with its mounting climaxes,
brought this outstanding concert to an exciting conclusion.
This was the Tchaikovsky concert with
everything - superb singing, pianism, and to crown it all a tremendous corporate
orchestral effort.
Tamara Sinyavskaya displayed her opulent contralto voice to
carefully controlled advantage in the composer's Six Songs - a voice and
orchestra arrangement by Svetlanov.
Hers was an emotion-filled and entirely
Russian timbre, showing to great advantage in the finely delineated phrasing of
None But The Lonely Heart, Does The Day Reign? ended the cycle with a
dynamic, surging sound from singer and players alike.
Sgouros gave an
individual and unusually poetic account of the beloved Piano Concerto in B
flat minor.
Drama there was too, but it was surprising to hear the
cadenza's opening treated with real delicacy.
Fleet-fingered solo work in the
andantino's middle portion generated superbly controlled pace and magical
clarity. This was followed by great momentum and speed pervading the last
movement before a thrilling climax with the broadly sweeping final melody.
This young man's phenomenal technique and emotional gifts showed even more
startlingly in extra solos - first with dazzling yet totally controlled
pyrotechnics, and later with Chopin's Nocturne in C minor in a slightly
warward yet endearing version.
The awesome power and delicacy of this great
orchestra was fully revealed with the Symphony No. 5 in E minor.
This
endlessly popular romantic masterpiece proved yet again to be an ideal vehicle
for orchestral display, coupled with sombre, yet passionate emotional
reflection.
Svetlanov's was a vividly Russian interpretation, achieved without
a baton, and by leaving the players strictly alone in more obvious passages, he
got to the heart of things without a trace of fussy sentimentality.
Headlong
tempi in the finale's vivacious allegro and elsewhere displayed boundless energy
rising to climaxes of truly staggering proportions.
Russian woodwind sounds
strangely coarse to Western ears, but its individual and collective aura
intensified this music's character.
Vigorous and finely disciplined brass
playing provided brilliant rhythmic support and drive to this edifice, together
with beautiful reflective movements for solo horn.
The string section's
overflowing ranks played with tremendous fire and unfaltering discipline.
SENSATIONS are, by their very nature, hard acts to repeat. But
exceptional cases exist. The appearances of pianist Dimitris Sgouros come under that heading.
His first performances here in 1987 at the age of 17 made
everyone who heard him sit up and marvel at this so far unknown, but
obviously sensational, pianist from Greece. Now he is in Sydney for
the third time, having turned 22 last month, no longer unknown, and
once again able to transport an audience into paroxysms of
enthusiasm.
The important factor is, of course, that he does it not by some
showman's sleight-of-hand, but by the brand of spiritually and
technically astonishing musicianship that marks great artists.
His performance of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.3 in D Minor
Opus 30 with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, under Russian conductor
Vladimir Verbitsky, had every possible merit.
The work lends itself to the kind of pianistic mountaineering
that we associate with the Brahms concertos, a sense of Herculean
struggle that reaches its climax in the cadenzas; but there are also
stretches of lyricism which call for the most gently poetic keyboard
caresses.
Sgouros had massive power where
needed, never in danger (to which many pianists succumb in this
concerto) of being submerged by the orchestra, yet his quiet
passages traced a filigree lacework of rare sensitivity.
If hearing this musician was a rare experience, it was not the
only joy of a very satisfying concert.
Verbitsky took the Classical Symphony by Prokofiev rather more
slowly than most conductors, and though once or twice there was a
lack of volume contrast, the resultant clarity of line and inner
parts was a tremendous asset.
His vision of Dante's Inferno during the symphonic fantasy
Francesca da Rimini by Tchaikovsky was a little restrained until all
hell broke loose with the last bars, but apart from some awkward
woodwind notes, this was also a performance marked by a fine balance
and dramatic effect.
If there ever was such a time as the Good Old Days of music, then it must
surely have been a little like Wednesday night's Great Performers concert.
The
key word here is performers, for both soloist Dimitris Sgouros and conductor
Vladimir Verbitsky proved themselves performers in the grand tradition, able to
whip up that sense of the gala occasion that turns a concert into something
special.
Sgouros is a remarkable pianist and it's no sort of criticism to say
his playing of the Rachmaninov Third Piano Concerto showed a machine-like
precision. This was evident not only in his ability to produce huge torrents of
accurately articulated notes but also in the rock-solid way he produced clear
and forceful sounds from a keyboard struck with what appeared to be absolute
security. The sound was not huge, there have been louder pianists in the Opera
House Concert Hall, but it was strong and to the point.
Allied to this was an
intelligent way with the rubato necessary to bring Rachmaninov's autumnal
romanticism to exciting life; this may be the stuff of which Hollywood was made,
but even Hollywood got it right sometimes.
Verbitsky and the SSO went all the
way with him; this was the real thing, the often spoken of but not so often
heard dialogue between soloist and orchestra.
Another dialogue, between
conductor and musicians, was going on at the same time and, in fact, had made
itself evident from the very start of the concert. Verbitsky has an exaggerated
way with gestures, a touch of the Hollywoods again perhaps, but the orchestra
seemed to like what he was doing.
Whatever it was, they gave a brilliantly
rich performance of Prokofiev's First Symphony, the Classical.
THIS was an audience determined to see as well as hear. The
eastern boxes in the concert hall, with their clear view of the
pianist's hands at the keyboard, were relatively full, those on the
western side almost empty.
The same was true of the seats in the choir stalls and the upper
circle. And why not? Dimitris Sgouros is a pianist who has dazzled
listeners with velocity and fire and drawn a public much more
diverse than the norm, a public eager to marvel and be thrilled.
Yet there was nothing in his manner at the keyboard that came
under the heading of overt showmanship.
The listeners who crowded towards the eastern side of the hall
saw no head-tossing, no triumphantly raised talons, no acts of
finicky magnification; simply a poised young man whose engagement
with difficult music resulted in a minimum of bodily movement.
Which is not to say that his interpretative insights were always
at the level of his unaffected technical control: his playing of
Beethoven's F Minor Sonata (the Appassionata) Opus 57 began vividly
but dwindled into a rather pale characterisation of the drama of
theme and key in the first movement.
The performance of the second movement started sonorously and
nobly but seemed almost to retreat from the brooding opportunities
offered by the transition to the finale; and the finale, though
brilliant, appeared neutrally active.
Five of Liszt's Transcendental Studies seemed to promise Sgouros opportunities for more
decisively planned contrasts. The promise was fulfilled up to a
point and there were superb moments of bravura (including some of
those Lisztian intersections of rapid hand movements that make a
skilled pianist look rather like a professional card-shuffler).
Curiously, however, the lyrical and peaceful studies carried more
conviction than those that were rapid and feverish.
Sgouros may be going through a
difficult phase in which, after astounding his listeners with
youthful certainties, he searches for deeper meanings and has to be
prepared to wait for them to come to him.
The notion received rebuttal as well as support from his
performance of the complete set of 24 Chopin Preludes, Opus 28,
which admirably made up the second half of the program.
Young Greek pianist
Dimitris Sgouros drew a huge audience for his recital at the Gold Coast Arts
Centre earlier this week.
This young man plays with great commitment. There is a deliberation and an
attention to detail that remarkably still allows through the passion, as was
heard in his opening piece, the wonderful Beethoven piano sonata The
Appassionata.
There was the beautiful control of the opening passage, making the fire of
the following section all the motre effective.
The listeners could not contain themselves and applauded spontaneously at the
end of the first movement, something not recommended because it could destroy
the concentration of a lesser performer.
However, Sgouros maintained his total involvement in the music and held his
audience in later pieces, making the atmosphere last until the final vibration
of the strings had stopped and all sound ebbed away causing total silence,
before he moved at the piano.
Two Chopin pieces followed, again showing his skill blending technique with
sensitive, poetic playing which can only gain in depth as he matures.
The Liszt Transcendental Study No 11 was delicately etched, rising in dynamic
and power as it progressed.
He held his audience spellbound as he negotiated the pianistic gymnastics of
the last item, Liszt's Reminiscences Of Bellini's Norma, an awesome
conglomeration of the operatic numbers.
The virtuoso pianist Liszt dumbfounded audiences in his day with this
composition.
Our brilliant young pianist did the same, his physical stamina and sheer
wrist strength and flexibility dazzling the audience and, despite two delightful
encores, left them wanting more - surely an excellent way to finish a
successful concert.
Dimitris Sgouros, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
conductor Vladimir Verbitsky.
With typical generosity, the young Greek
pianist played two highly popular concertos in his only appearance with the
Melbourne Symphony, generous because either one would have satisfied any
audience.
Sgouros refrained from thundering through the A minor concerto by
Grieg, choosing an attractively modest and moderate approach to a work that has
suffered more than most at the hands of pianists who take the first movement
cadenza as an interpretative starting point, sacrificing restraint for Lisztian
thunder.
The continuing problem with the performance revolved around the
meshing of soloist and orchestra at climactic moments, specifically in the outer
movements where Verbitsky tended to bring in the full orchestra a fraction late.
Beethoven's E flat concerto, the 'Emperor', worked better in terms of ensemble,
but then it operates on a less flimsy and poetic framework than the Grieg and it
offers more of an "argument". Sgouros gave a reading that was expressive and
unflustered, giving the lengthy paragraphs their due weight and room to breathe.
One has heard more robust readings of this work but very few as even or as
cleanly delivered.
The night began with Tchaikovsky's 'Francesca da Rimini',
driven powerfully by Verbitsky in the outer sections, not the most <illegible word> of performances but memorable for its vigor. The tone poem, if it did nothing else,
served to highlight the spacious and satisfying work of the visiting pianist -
now on his third tour and proving more satisfying and impressive with each
visit.
Hardly anyone - and that includes some of the world's most celebrated pianists -
is courageous and accomplished enough to include Liszt's Transcendental
Studies in a recital. In fact, for quite some time after they were first
published in their definitive version, it was only the composer who was able to
play them successfully. They are some of the most ferociously difficult pieces
ever written, demanding, as they do, massive reserves of stamina and fingers
which know no fears. On both these counts, 22-year-old Dimitris Sgouros was
triumphant, negotiating with the nonchalance of mastery, the kind of hurdles
before which most other musicians would quail and retreat. But there was far
more than mere technical wizardry to Sgouros' account of these studies.
It was
his ability unerringly to reveal the interior mood of each of these taxing
pieces that raised his performance to a quite exalted category of excellence,
the kind of playing, I'd imagine, that prompted Rostropovich to call this
extraordinary young pianist "a miracle, a creation of God."
Certainly, in his
ability to convey the diaphanous murmurings of Feux follets and to
release the raging demon that lurks behind the pages of Etude in A minor,
Sgouros scaled Olympus.
His account of Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata,
on the other hand, although admirable in many ways, was by contrast, an
excursion through musical foothills.
Whereas the Liszt Etudes were
presented with the kind of panache which swept all before it and made one feel
as they had been specially written for him Sgouros seemed less than entirely in
sympathy with the stylistic demands of the Appassionata. Although
faithful to the score notationally, the playing lacked that sense of absolute
authority which informed Sgouros' presentation of the Etudes.
The 24
preludes which comprise Chopin's opus 28 received somewhat uneven handling. In
some of these miniatures, Sgouros was peerless, as in superbly declamatory and
dramatic accounts of Nos 18 and 22, and a surging, passionate exposition of the
Prelude in F sharp minor. The Prelude in B flat minor, though, was
played so quickly that the beat weakened, with the consequent lessening of
impact. And curiously for a pianist with such a phenomenally articulate and
controlled left hand, the accompanying figurations in the Prelude in G
were disappointingly blurred.
No matter, there were many other rewards, not
least the encores, which included some achingly beautiful Scriabin and a
dazzling, wondrously light-fingered treatment of Chopin's Minute Waltz.
If this recital is anything to go by - and particularly in relation to the Liszt
bracket - there is little doubt that Dimitris Sgouros is successfully making the
often hazardous transition from child prodigy to mature master of the keyboard.
Above: With Bob Hawke
(Prime Minister of Australia) and Reuben Fineberg
Below: Group photo with Bob Hawke
LEFT: Sgouros with Paul Keating
(Treasurer & future Prime Minister of Australia) and wife Annita
RIGHT: Sgouros with Australia's
Governor-General Bill Hayden in Government House
With Ray Martin on Australian television (Channel 9)
With Jana Wendt on the Australian TV program "A
Current Affair" - interview & burning rubber with a Porsche in Perth!
With Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and the BBC Orchestra
Performance of Beethoven's Emperor
Concerto at the Aotea Centre, Auckland
THE SGOUROS
PHENOMENON
By DENIS CONDON
(1987 Sydney Morning
Herald)
RECITAL PROGRAM MONDAY 27th JUNE 1987
BEETHOVEN 32 Variations
in C minor
CHOPIN Fantasy in F
Minor
LISZT Mephisto Waltz
LISZT Paysage
(Transcendental Etude No 3)
BRAHMS Variations on a
Theme of Paganini Books 1 & 2
(1989 Sydney Morning
Herald)
RECITAL PROGRAM FRIDAY 10th MARCH 1989
RECITAL PROGRAM SUNDAY 12th MARCH 1989
BACH/BUSONI Chaconne
CHOPIN Ballade No 4 in F
minor
CHOPIN Ballade No 1 in G
minor
CHOPIN Sonata No 3 in B
minor
BALAKIREV Islamey
LISZT Venice and Naples
SCHUMANN Carnaval
LISZT Concert Paraphrase
on the Waltz from Gounod's "Faust"
(1991 Sydney Morning
Herald)
RECITAL PROGRAM TUESDAY 24th SEPT. 1991
RECITAL PROGRAM SUNDAY 6th OCT. 1991
BEETHOVEN "Appassionata"
Sonata
BEETHOVEN Sonata No 30 Op
109
LISZT 5 Transcendental
Studies
CHOPIN Scherzo No 2 in B
flat
CHOPIN The 24 Preludes
CHOPIN Nocturne in C
minor
CHOPIN Polonaise No 6 in
A flat
LISZT Harmonies du Soir
LISZT "Norma" Fantasy
Steinway and Sgouros, triumphs of
technique and musical creativity
CD of live
recordings from the Melbourne Concert Hall, 10th and 24th July 1987
Shown above is just a
small sampling of the promotional materials surrounding Dimitris Sgouros'
tours of Australia.
Along with the
major cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart,
Canberra, Darwin he has also performed in regional centres like the Gold
Coast (Surfers Paradise), Townsville, Penrith, Wollongong, Newcastle,
Geelong, etc..
A few TV spots from
Australia:-
Steinway & Sons - Rebuilding
the Legend Exhibition
STEINWAY GRAND PIANO NO. 1 (1836)
$3 million replica - Worldwide
Tribute Tour
March 2008, Perth Concert Hall - exhibition of $3
million replica of the first Steinway piano built in 1836
"The original instrument has been
painstakingly recreated by renowned Flemish pianoforte builder Chris Maene"
"The Perfect Tribute To A Great
Legend"
(photos courtesy of
cvxmelody)
DIMITRIS SGOUROS - Steinway & Sons 150 Years Commemorative
Double CD Album (1853-2003)
"It gives me great
pleasure to commemorate this significant milestone..."
- Henry Z. Steinway
"The sound is unmistakable..."
(from an interview in
Greek - February 15, 2006)
Σ.Δ.
Όντως! Μέσα σε όλα αυτά, σου έχει συμβεί ποτέ κάποιο ευτράπελο
γεγονός άξιο αναφοράς;
Δ.Σ.
Πρόχειρα στο μυαλό μου έρχεται το εξής: Σε μια από τις προγραμματισμένες
περιοδείες μου στην Αυστραλία, ο τότε συνεργάτης μας, μας ζήτησε να
πραγματοποιήσω και μια εμφάνιση στην Ταζμανία. Μη γνωρίζοντας ούτε οι δικοί μου
ούτε βέβαια εγώ την ύπαρξη του μεγάλου αυτού νησιού απέναντι, πιστεύοντας ότι
πρόκειται για τυπογραφικό λάθος στην πρόσκληση απαντήσαμε: «Τι δουλεία έχει ο
Δημήτρης σε περιοδεία της Αυστραλίας να πάει να παίξει στην ΤΑΝΖΑΝΙΑ;
Ακόμα
γελάμε από αυτό μας το λάθος!
English translation:-
Interviewer: Do you have
any amusing anecdotes to relate?
Dimitris Sgouros:In one
of our scheduled tours of Australia, our management proposed a concert
appearance in Tasmania. Since neither my family nor I had heard of this large
island, we thought it was a typo and responded: "Why on earth would Dimitris
touring Australia want to play in TANZANIA?
