Paul Lewis, Royal Festival Hall - music review
Long established as a consummate Beethovenian and Schubertian, Paul Lewis has recently begun to explore the more subjective reaches of the Romantic repertoire. But judging by this recital, he's lowering himself gently into this new terrain.
He began with the two Beethoven op 27 sonatas deploying his trademark variety of tonal colour and mastery of architecture. Each was introduced seamlessly by a Busoni transcription of a Bach chorale prelude, played with proper regard for Romantic phrasing and layering of texture.
After the interval came Liszt, but not one of the major works; rather three miniatures from the composer’s late, austere period. In Lewis’s hands, Schlaflos, Frage und Antwort (Sleepless, Question and Answer) tossed and turned graphically enough, while Unstern! Sinistre, Disastro sounded duly ominous. Best of all was Liszt’s tribute on the death of his friend Wagner, RW – Venezia, which was invested with the sense of a truly momentous event.
Only in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, however, did Lewis have the opportunity to show his potential in this kind of repertoire. His nifty Promenade may have suggested a brisk canter round the gallery, but it helped to tie this disparate collection of tableaux together. Notable were the feathery lightness of The Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks and the effortless virtuosity of the Limoges marketplace. It all added up to a remarkably fresh and individual approach to the work, such as to make one eager to hear this fine pianist in more substantial works by, say, Liszt and Busoni.
