(William
Charlton-Perkins)
Re-instating Hummel
Unfettered virtuosity is key to performing
the once renowned Austrian composer-pianist’s music, as Stephen Hough, Howard
Shelly and Dmitry Shishkin, three keyboard giants of our time, demonstrate.
Some thirty years ago, Stephen Hough, a
swiftly rising young British pianist, astounded the musical world by launching
his recording career with benchmark performances of two fiendishly taxing piano
concertos by the then relatively obscure Austrian composer, Johann Nepomuk
Hummel (1778 – 1837).
Despite his being an outsider, essaying
rarely performed repertoire, Hough’s dizzying virtuosity and seeming relish in
surmounting the terrifying challenges of Hummel’s Opus 85 and 89 warhorses saw
him confounding the predictions of industry sages, to sweep the boards at the
1988 Gramophone Awards, seizing the title as that year’s overall winner.
This prestigious victory accelerated
Hough’s rapid ascent to international stardom. His now legendary Chandos disc
also fast-tracked the revival of Hummel’s own once illustrious reputation,
after it had languished for 150 years in posthumous eclipse. The Hummel
renaissance was particularly prevalent in the recording studio, where Hough’s
compatriot, Howard Shelley, issued a terrific series of Hummel works for piano
and orchestra, all on the Chandos label, performing and conducting his Mozart
Players with a dazzling display of élan.
Celebrated in his day as the world’s
leading keyboard virtuoso, Hummel’s works were written for his own
performances. And, as Mozart’s favourite pupil (and fellow domestic
billiard-playing enthusiast) he was also a highly influential composer whose
music bridged the divide between the Classical and Romantic eras. Hummel’s
imprint on the music and pianism of his Polish-born near contemporary, Frédéric
Chopin is palpable.
Without offering any spurious claims that
Hummel’s stature is on a level with those of the three mighty B’s, let alone
those of giants such as Handel, Mozart and Haydn, his creations in the hands of
great virtuoso performers, take on a life of their own, proudly co-existing
alongside those of composers such as Bellini and Donizetti, whose operas took a
Callas or a Sutherland to reinstate their public standing. Not for nothing did
the ambitious young Franz Liszt single out a Hummel piano sonata for his own
debut vehicle as a virtuoso in the international arena.
Now up for viewing on YouTube, is a
superbly crafted film of a live concert captured in 2017. This offers a
thrilling encounter with the extreme demands of Hummel’s A minor Concerto,
dispatched with infinite technical finesse, supreme musicality and a
breathtaking tonal palette, by the multi-award winning Russian pianist, Dmitry
Shishkin, then just 23 years of age. Clearly, the event was earmarked as a
major musical happening, presented in the wake of Shishkin’s unprecedented
string of triumphs on the major competition circuit.
Shishkin is clearly destined for Hall-of
Fame residence alongside generations of his historic compatriots. His
exquisitely nuanced performance is wonderfully offset by A-list partnering from
the great Russian conductor-pianist, Mikhail Pletnev, deeply appreciative of
his soloist, while leading his hand-picked Russian National Orchestra with a
minimal deployment of gesture from the podium. The performance teams with
stand-out moments: the delicate interplay of focus passing between winds and
soloist, sensitively highlighted by alertly roving camera work; ringside
close-ups switching from soloist to strings, enhancing Hummel’s lovely
integration of obbligato players and tutti; overhead camera shots displaying
the soloist’s massive, lightening-swift leaps, cruelly embedded in Hummel’s
score, jaggedly flying across the keyboard from one end to the other; the tidal
swell of full orchestral energy and headlong motion as the First Movement
exposition climaxes with a glittering downward glissando from the pianist; the
gravely beautiful opening to the hushed
Second Movement adagio, giving way to the pianist’s heart-stopping entry
on a melody of such aching beauty that even Bellini himself would proudly have
penned; and so on to the finale’s richly climactic resolution. The rewards
abound in this performance of a lifetime, as every audience member present
would doubtless attest.
To treat yourself, visit
- William Charlton-Perkins
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