Murray McLachlan

Piano Professional Autumn 2007 magazine now out!

2007-09-29T14:53:00.000Z

The Autumn 2007 Magazine 'Piano Professional', the magazine for the teaching pianist, is now published and available direct from EPTA UK for £3.75 (admin@eptauk-org.uk or 08456 581054). This is the second issue that Murray McLachlan has been editor for. The magazine is the flagship publication for the the European Piano Teachers' Association UK section, being read not only by pedagogues nationally, but also by pianofiles and people who love the instrument.

There are reviews, news piece and articles on Czerny, Seymour Lipkin, Eric Korngold, Chaminade, Piano technique, Prepared Pianos and contributions from Vanessa Latarche, Penelope Roskell, Anton Kuerti, Karl Lutchmayer, Jessica Duchen and many others. It differs from 'International Piano' and Rhinegold's 'Piano' (both of which McLachlan continues to contribute to) in that a more 'hands-on' approach is stressed to teaching and education. Thus in the new issue there is a 'motivation symposium' in which a panel of teachers discuss how to deal with students' concerns, as well as an article on what it is like to study music at Cambridge- through the eyes of a talented pianist undergraduate.

Herald Review November 1st

2006-11-09T14:24:00.000Z

This review from ‘The Herald’ on November 1st 2006 comes from the second lunchtime recital at Ramshorn Theatre, Glasgow and featured the second half of the Wigmore programme from September 10th. The concert is part of the ongoing national recital tour, sponsored by the UK Shostakovich Society.

MURRAY MCLACHLAN, Ramshorn, Glasgow
Michael Tumelty
****

Murray McLachlan’s second recital yesterday in his short series entitled Shostakovich and his Comrades, marking the centenary of the Russian composer’s birth, was a very different animal from the first.
The core of the programme was a rare performance of Shostakovich’s Second Piano Sonata, written during the war years but bearing no resemblance, as far as I could judge, to any of the great orchestral works of the period. The rippling passages in its first movement surrounded a pawky little march that apparently paid lip-service to Soviet realism, though, as McLachlan pointed out, then underlined in his penetrating performance, the music might well have been coloured with that sardonic touch so typical of the composer.
It was, however, in its extraordinary slow movement that the sonata made its most striking impression, with expressionistic music that might have come straight out of the Second Viennese School in another country and a radically different culture, though this, too, was undercut by the typically dry staccato music with a hint in its tread of a funeral march. The finale, stunningly played by McLachlan, was a dazzling example of the theme and variations species, where Shostakovich, in a masterpiece of coherence and clarity, never once let the theme slip out of focus.
In prefacing the Shostakovich with Ronald Stevenson’s powerfully eloquent and haunting Recitative and Air, a memorial to the Russian composer built on the notes of his motto theme, DSCH, McLachlan broadened the depth and scope of his survey of little-known Russian treasures, before winding up a superb recital with Shchedrin’s lunatic and madcap Naughty Limericks Concerto, in which the Keystone Cops teamed up with Road Runner a la Russe.

Manchester Evening News Shostakovich CD review

2006-11-05T20:29:00.000Z

Manchester Evening News Review

October 20th 2006

MURRAY MCLACHLAN

Shostakovich and his comrades (Dunelm)
****
Kabalevsky: Sonata no. 3
Myaskovsky: Song and Rhapsody
Shostakovich: Sonatas nos 1 & 2
Ronald Stevenson: Recitative and Air (DSCH)
Shchedrin: Naughty Limericks.
Murray McLachlan (Dunelm DRED 0264, mid-price)

The International Summer School and Festival for Pianists at Chetham’s School of Music, organised by Murray McLachlan, has been a high-value listener event since he began it, so it’s good to find some of the performances preserved on CD. This one is by Murray himself, recorded late last August shortly after the festival, and celebrates the Shostakovich centenary with vivid performances of the first and second sonatas, along with a varies set of pieces by other Russian giants of the 20th century, plus an odd little in-memoriam piece by Ronald Stevenson. The two Shostakovich sonatas are far apart in style. The Kabalevsky is a fascinating and in some ways quite Romantic work, and the Myaskovsky even more so. McLachlan rises to all of them in this programme, never sentimental but often deeply moving – and rounds them off with some hilarious clowning by Shchedrin.
Robert Beale

'Key recording' award for Stevenson recording in Penguin Guide to CDs 2006

2006-11-05T20:27:00.000Z

PENGUIN GUIDE TO COMPACT DISCS 2006

STEVENSON,Ronald (born 1928)

Passacaglia on D.S.C.H.

*** Divine Art 25013. McLachlan

It was the appearance of John Ogdon’s remarkable LP set of the Passacaglia on DSCH in 1967 that alerted collectors to Ronald Stevenson’s music. He composed the Passacaglia between 1960 and 1962 and, like Sorabji’s Opus Clavicembalisticum or Busoni’s Fantasia contrappuntistica (Stevenson is a keen and persuasive advocate of that composer), it is some-thing of a tour de force. It is a mighty set of variations on the four-note motif D-S-C-H derived from Shostakovich’s monogram, lasting without a break for some 80 minutes. Later on in the score Stevenson introduces another four-note anagram, B-A-C-H, perhaps a reference to Busoni’s Fantasia contrapuntistica. When he presented Shostakovich with the score at the 1962 Edinburgh Festival, he said that the combination of Russian and German motifs symbolized his hope that the two nations, and mankind generally, would live in harmony. The twelfth section cleverly alludes to the microtonal scale of the Highland bagpipes and incorporates a seventeenth-century Pibroch Cumha ne Cloinne (‘Lament for the children’) and there is a formidable climatic triple fugue in which the Dies irae surfaces. In the 1960s Sir William Walton hailed the piece as ‘really tremendous – magnificent – I can’t remember having been so excited by a new work for a very long time’. Murray McLachlan is an impressive exponent of this score and he is very well recorded. (Some years ago he recorded the two piano concertos that Stevenson wrote about this time, so he is completely a tuned to this music).

New review for Shostakovich and his comrades CD

2006-11-04T14:34:00.000Z

The following review appeared in The Herald on October 21st.

Shostakovich and his Comrades: A Centenary CelebrationDmitri KABALEVSKY (1904-87)Sonata No. 3 in F major, Op.46 (1946) [13:55]Nikolai MYASKOVSKY (1881-1950)’Song and Rhapsody’, Op.58 (1942) [11:32]Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-75)Piano Sonata No.1, Op.12 (1926) [12:36]Ronald STEVENSON (b. 1928)Recitative and Air (DSCH) (1975) [5:35]Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-75)Piano Sonata No.2 in B minor, Op.61 (1942) [27:06]Rodion SHCHEDRIN (b. 1932)Tschastuschki: concerto for piano solo, ‘Naughty Limericks’ (1963/99)Murray McLachlan (piano)rec. The Whiteley Hall, Manchester, 26 & 27 August 2006. DDDDUNELM DRD0264 [79:44]

Pianist Murray McLachlan’s new CD is a mind-blowing tour de force of repertoire and performance. Devised as a centenary celebration of the great Russian composer, McLachlan’s disc is certainly that: the performances of Shostakovich’s two sonatas address the major issue of their neglect. The first, a youthful work, is a monstrous piece of percussive pianism which, crudely, out-Prokofiev’s Prokofiev, while the second, from the war years, is a more measured, mature and “interior” piece, movingly played by McLachlan. The core value of the disc resides not just in Shostakovich but in the fact that McLachlan spreads the net wide, taking in Kabalevsky’s wonderful. Prokofiev-influenced Third Sonata, Myaskovsky’s deeply profound Song and Rhapsody, Shchedrin’s wickedly outrageous Naughty Limericks concerto for solo piano, and Ronald Stevenson’s image-laden memorial to Shostakovich, Recitative and Air. A very important issue, recorded, McLachlan told me last week, at Chetham’s Music School this summer in a series of single takes. Astonishing stuff, some of which McLachlan will be playing live in Glasgow’s Ramshorn on Tuesday 31.

Michael Tumelty, CD Reviews in The Guide, Arts; Books; Cinema; p4; The Herald , October 21, 2006.Ref. 0264 rev MT Glasgow Herald.doc

'THe Herald' Shostakovich Tour Review by Michael Tumelty

2006-10-24T17:48:00.000Z

THE HERALD OCTOBER 11 2006
This review from ‘The Herald’ on October 11 2006 comes from a lunchtime recital for Strathclyde University and featured the first half of the Wigmore programme from September 10th. The concert is part of the ongoing national recital tour, sponsored by the UK Shostakovich Society. Part two of the Wigmore programme will reach Glasgow on October 31 and Nov 1st (see tour dates):

MURRAY MCLACHLAN, Ramshorn, Glasgow
Michael Tumelty
****
Pianist Murray McLachlan couldn’t keep the mischievous twinkle out of his eyes yesterday as he faced his near-capacity audience at Ramshorn. “Don’t worry”, he reassured the crowd, most of whom were clearly shattered. “That was a one-off.”
The one-off in question was Shostakovich’s First Piano Sonata, little-known, seldom-played, but one of the loudest, most aggressive and most violent pieces in the entire literature of the keyboard. McLachlan gave the sonata a rare outing, a committed, impassioned pounding and, altogether, a good seeing-to by placing it as the final item in the first of his two Glasgow recitals entitled Shostakovich and his Comrades, designed to mark the centenary of Russia’s greatest composer of the last century and the release of McLachlan’s latest CD, which features the music in his touring programme.
From start to end, with here and there a lull for some ominous thunder, the sonata, written when Shostakovich was barely out of his teens, represents a young man’s assault on his listeners’ ears and preconceptions, as well as a musically-virile young composer’s display of self-awareness of his own prodigious skills.
At the heart of the otherwise non-stop, motoric, percussively-lunatic sonata lies a single moment of respite, where the music implodes before starting over. McLachlan executed a spectacularly theatrical collapse at this moment, lying in a heap at the bottom of the bass register of the piano, fists and head buried in the keyboard. It wasn’t a stunt, but it was certainly breathtaking.
A fabulous recital, with the Shostakovich garlanded by other splendid and woefully-neglected rarities from Kabalevsky and Myaskovsky. More in three weeks.

New Bartok-Camilleri-Stravinsky 2 Pianos & Percussion Review

2006-10-20T22:52:00.000Z

A new review of the Dunelm Recording of Stravinsky 'Le Sacre' in its piano duet arrangement, Bartok Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion and Charles Camilleri Concerto for " pianos and Percussion

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Oct06/camilleri_DRD0258.htm

An ingenious, challenging and successful recital, excellently planned and played, bringing us a triptych of works for the chosen ensemble ... Jonathan Woolf
BUY NOW
www.dunelm-records.co.uk
Innovations: Music by Camilleri, Stravinsky and Bartok Charles CAMILLERI (b. 1931) Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion (2005) [20.59] Igor STRAVINSKY (1882-1971) The Rite of Spring (1912-13 revised 1947) Reduction for piano duet by the composer. [34.18] Bela BARTOK (1881-1945) Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937) [26.51] Kathryn Page; Murray McLachlan (piano) Heather Corbett; Stephen Burke (percussion) rec. Whiteley Hall, Manchester, 1 Sept 2005, 28 Jan 2006. DDD. Stereo DUNELM RECORDS DRDO258. [2 CDs: 82:11]

This is an ingenious recital, excellently planned and played. It brings us a triptych of works, one canonic for the chosen ensemble – the Bartók – one clothed in unusually spare guise – the Stravinsky – and one new to disc and a wholesome and bracing addition to the repertoire, the Camilleri.
Owing its genesis to the composer’s visit to Chetham’s School of Music in 2004 Camilleri’s Concerto for two pianos and percussion was completed the following year and unveiled in August 2005. This naturally enough is its premiere recording. It’s an exciting, often advanced work, tonal in essence but fully prepared to draw the listener’s – and performers’ – ears into rich new sound-worlds. The percussion adds a veritable Kandinsky of colour or else assumes a rhythmic independence that galvanises the exchanges, dialogues and soliloquies between the instruments. The opening movement visits some jagged, dynamic, explosive figures, though it ends in a kind of speculative, tentative indecision. Strong contrasts are a feature of the concerto and the Bartók was clearly one of the thoroughly absorbed models, both in terms of sound distribution and the level of internal energy generated. The saturnine piano writing contrasts with more reflective material, the percussion adding jazz-based glee – puckish and insolent – that manages to drive the pianos up the keyboard. The finale opens with Mussorgskian catacombs but there’s plenty of powerhouse declamation and dynamism here, a really exciting end to a broad ranging and inventive new work.
The Stravinsky is unusual enough in this two piano reduction to make one listen anew with freshly cleansed ears. The clarity thus revealed brings one closer, perhaps, to the compositional impulses that drove Stravinsky. It can’t replicate, quite obviously, the more primitive dynamism, the remarkable colour or the sheer overwhelming newness of orchestration and rhythm that the orchestral work displays. Nevertheless when played with such incision and verve as here it’s exciting on its own terms. When we hear the Ritual of the Rival Tribes and the Procession of the Sage played with as much energy and pulsating drama as here, we can happily enjoy the whole splendidly realised performance – and savour its relative rarity value as well.
The Bartók has received a number of compelling readings over the years but its necessity in this programme is obvious and very welcome. Kathryn Page and Murray McLachlan convey rather well the quasi-orchestral power of the first movement and the ensemble brings colour and definition to the writing, as well as clear delineation. The shimmering intensity of the central movement builds properly and powerfully, whilst the rhythmic snap of the finale is notable. They don’t overlook the caustically witty ending.
With a spacious but focused recording set-up strands come through with clarity but no hint of coldness. This is a challenging and successful recital. It spreads over onto two discs but is priced as one.
Jonathan Woolf
see also review by David Hackbridge Johnson

New Wigmore Hall Recital Review

2006-10-19T09:32:00.000Z

New Internet review of Wigmore Hall Recital on September 10 2006 at 'music on the web':

Seen and Heard Recital Review. Read in full at: www.musicweb.uk.net/sandh/2006/Jul-Dec06/mclachlan1009.htm

Kabalevsky, Miaskovsky, Shostakovich, Stevenson & Shchedrin: Murray
McLachlan (piano). Wigmore Hall, 10.09. 2006

Murray McLachlan’s recordings for Dunelm have always struck me as a mixed
bag (see here for my reviews of his Busoni and Chisholm) so it was good to
see him live, exceeding all expectations. This programme bristled with
difficulties, none of which seriously stretched him.

The Kabalevsky was the Third Sonata (for excellent recorded versions of
this, try either Werner Haas on a fascinating multi-disc set, or
Moiseiwitsch on a much cheaper Naxos disc). This 1945 work is an ideal
first item as it poses no real difficulties for the listener but is
nevertheless superbly crafted. McLachlan articulated the opening ‘Allegro
con moto’ very well (straight in, no settling at the piano), and just
avoided overloading the notorious Wigmore acoustic. He saw parts of the
first movement as almost Impressionist in conception, and located
late-Liszt-like dark sonorities in the second movement. The circus-like
finale had more than a twang of the slapstick about it.

McLachlan recorded Miaskovsky’s 1942 Song and Rhapsody, Op. 58 for Olympia
(OCD217). Interesting to hear Miaskovsky in context here (he taught
Kabalevsky, and the two were actually living in the same house when Op. 58
was composed!). The Song is very nostalgia-laden (McLachlan projected the
melody well) while the Rhapsody is unpredictable, as every good Rhapsody
should be, shifting hither and thither while flowing naturally all the
while. Fascinating.

It was the inclusion of both of the Shostakovich Sonatas that originally
drew me to this programme. McLachlan laid into the First in no uncertain
fashion (it was uncomfortable even from the very back of the hall). His
agenda was clearly to expose the extremes this work explores (the use of
the left-hand fist certainly added to the visual effect). The dynamic
range utilized was huge (as was the pause after a sequence of low-register
aggregations). Memorable.

The Second Sonata was reserved for the second half. Possibly he was
getting tired, as finger slips were creeping in (the first half was
notable for its accuracy), the work’s angularity was somewhat underplayed
and the slow movement could have looked further inward. It was left to the
finale to remind us of what a fine player McLachlan is. His spinning of
the long unaccompanied line was mesmeric; he brought Handel to mind in the
dotted Variation VIII and he generally had the measure of this movement.

Interesting to compare McLachlan with Donohoe at the QEH in March.
McLachlan made the stronger impression of the two by far (and played from
memory), seeming to travel more often to the heart of this impressive
music.

Preceding this was a work by Ronald Stevenson, the Recitative and Air
(DSCH). Apparently composed on a four-hour long train journey, this is a
work that despite some really peaceful moments and an obvious Bach link
leaves an impression of grayness and anonymity. Much more interesting was
the final item on the programme, Rodion Shchedrin’s Tschastuschki:
Concerto for Piano Solo, ‘Naughty Limericks’. Almost jazz-like and
possessed of unbuttoned virtuosity, this work is a virtuoso exploration of
the irreverent folk-songs of its title. McLachlan seemed particularly
suited to the toccata-like passages, but also reveled in the
Petrushka-like bitonalities and the irreverent vamp-till-ready
accompaniments. Great fun.

This was a memorable, intelligently planned recital – I look forward to
hearing McLachlan live in concert again.

Colin Clarke

New BBC radio Interview on Sunday 22 October

2006-10-18T12:44:00.000Z

New BBC Interview on Sunday!

Murray McLachlan talks about forthcoming concerts and projects to Jamie McDougall on the classical music magazine show ‘Grace notes’, which will also feature the first broadcast performance of part of his new CD for Dunelm records ‘Shostakovich and his comrades’.

(Sunday 22 October, BBC Radio Scotland 15.05-17.00hrs ‘Grace Notes’ with Jamie McDougall on 92-95fm 810mw)

New Review in October 06 issue of Gramophone Magazine

2006-10-17T08:44:00.000Z

The current issue of Gramophone includes a review of the recent Regis Stevenson Concerto recording:

Stevenson Piano Concertos No 1 ‘Faust Triptych’; No 2 ‘The Continents’
Murray McLachlan pf
Chetham’s Symphony Orchestra/Julian Clayton
Regis Forum FRC 9109 (65’DDD)
From Olympia OCD429, recorded 1993

A dedicated non-follower of fashion finds champions worthy of his music

These extraordinary concertos are the products of a born rebel with a cause: a composer-pianist who has resolutely defied fashion to go his own way. Both are outsize reflections of Stevenson’s love of Busoni, a figure who has haunted him throughout his long and adventurous career, hanging like a menacing cloud over so much of his music. Originally written as a Franckian solo triptych for John Ogdon (another key influence), the First Concerto’s meditation on Busoni’s Doktor Faust was later orchestrated for its final form. The sombre start, sudden flashes of pianistic lightning and the alternation of toccata-like figuration and long passages of gloomy but mesmeric introspection are wholly typical.
The Second Concerto, The Continents, unites wildly disparate elements (African drumming, Australasian, Asian, Scottish pibroch, American and Latin-American) to create a vast musical fabric, its coherence dictated by the idea of a world united against prejudice and cruelty.
The piano writing in both concertos is as idiomatic and demanding as you would expect from a pianist of Stevenson’s calibre, at once virtuoso and primus inter pares. And it could hardly have a more dazzling or eloquent champion than Murray McLachlan. Chetham’s Symphony Orchestra do both composer and pianists proud and if it is difficult to imagine either concerto achieving popularity (hardly the composer’s intention), both repay the closest study. Sound and balance are admirable and all lovers of Stevenson’s powerful, eclectic but personal voice will have to have this. Bryce Morrison

Gramophone volume 84 October 2006

New tour of Germany with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

2006-10-16T10:45:00.000Z

RHAPSODY IN BLUE AUTUMN TOUR IN GERMANY AND THE UK

Following on from his forthcoming Symphony Hall Birmingham Rhapsody in Blue performance this Saturday (21 October), Murray will embark on a major tour of Germany with the same work, this time with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in seven major venues.

(Saturday October 21st Symphony Hall Birmingham – Raymond Gubbay 40th anniversary champagne Gala concert with the London Concert Orchestra, conductor Christopher Warren-Green)

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Germany (full details of tickets, etc from j.zich@deag.de ) :

Friday October 27th Europahalle Karlsruhe

Thursday November 2nd Velodrom Berlin

Friday November 3rd Volkswagenhalle Braunschweig

Monday November 6th Ostseehalle Kiel

Tuesday November 7th Bordelandhalle Magdeburg

Friday November 17th Arena Oberhausen

Friday December 8th Jako Arena Bamberg

Murray McLachlan has performed with the RPO many times over the years, including performances at the Royal Festival Hall (Tchaikovsky no, 1 and Rachmaninov no,2 ( Barbican (Greig) Fairfield Halls and Cambridge Corn Exchange (Schumann A minor)

Live interview for BBC Radio 3 'In Tune' on 16 Aug 06 at 18.15

2006-08-10T11:09:00.000Z

‘In Tune’ , BBC Radio Three, Wednesday 16 August 2006 from 18.15 hrs

Murray will be interviewed live on BBC Radio 3's "In Tune" programme by Petroc Trelawny on Wednesday 16th August about his forthcoming Wigmore Hall Recital and the Chetham’s International Summer School and Festival For Pianists. Excerpts from his Russian and Ronald Stevenson recordings will be played.

The programme is also streamed live on the BBC Radio website at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3 and will be available as 'audio on demand' for seven days after the broadcast, (from 16-23 August)

Special Raymond Gubbay Champagne Classical Gala Concert on 21 October 2006, Symphony Hall, Birmingham

2006-07-25T17:18:00.000Z

It is always tremendously enjoyable performing concertos for Raymond Gubbay, and thrilling too to be part of the fortieth birthday concert in symphony hall, Birmingham this Autumn with Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue' under Christopher Warren-Green. 'Rhapsody in Blue' is always inspiring to tackle, and in fact there were three collaborations with Chris Warren-Green for Gubbay at the Albert Hall during the 'Millenium Proms' on 30 and 31 Dec 1999. Even further back, my Royal Festival Hall Debut (also Raymond Gubbay Debut) featured the same work in May 1989(this time with Bramwell Tovey conducting). Fantastic that after forty years, Raymond Gubbay continues to grow and develop from strength to strength:

Raymond Gubbay celebrates 40 glorious years bringing you
Classic. . .After Classic. . .After Classic
Venue Date Time
Symphony Hall, Birmingham Sat, 21 Oct 2006 7:30pm Book Online
http://www.raymondgubbay.co.uk/displayEvent.asp?eventid=245
Event Details
Champagne Classical Gala
Sat, 21 Oct 2006 - 7:30pm
Venue Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Box Office 0121 780 3333

Ticket Details
Ticket Price £31.50 £27.50 £24.50 £18.50 Choir £13.50 £9.50
£1.00 postage & admin charge for online booking

Performers
Deborah Norman (soprano)
John Hudson(Tenor)
Mark Stone (baritone)
Murray McLachlan (piano)
Christopher Warren-Green (conductor)
London Concert Orchestra Orchestra

Rossini William Tell Overture
Handel Music for the Royal Fireworks
Mascagni Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana
Puccini Che gelida manina, mi chiamano Mimi, O soave Fanciulla from La Boheme
Gershwin Rhapsody In Blue
Mendelssohn The Hebrides Overture
Strauss Blue Danube Waltz
Grieg Morning and In the Hall of the Mountain King
Bizet The Pearl Fishers Duet
Wood Fantasia on British Sea Songs
Arne Rule Britannia!
Ravel Bolero
Elgar Land of Hope and Glory

A COMPLIMENTARY INTERVAL GLASS OF CHAMPAGNE FOR EVERYONE!

Ronald Stevenson Piano Concertos re-issued this week

2006-07-25T08:31:00.000Z

Regis Records have re-issued the recording of Ronald Stevenson Piano Concertos 1 'Faust Triptych' and 2 'The Continents' on Forum FRC 9109 (available through www.regisrecords.co.uk). The disc was made in 1993 in BBC Manchester's Studio 7 with the Chetham's Symphony Orchestra under Julian Clayton and attracted positive reviews at the time. Concerto 1 was championed by John Ogdon in the 1960s, whilst no. 2 was a Prom Commission, premiered with the composer as soloist under Norman Del Mar. It uses a huge and exotic instrumentation! One of my earliest childhood memories is of watching a BBC TV documentary about this piece, during which Ronald Stevenson played his 'evocation of African Drumming' from the Passacaglia. For a young kid, it sounded unbelievably exciting (and for an adult, it still does too!).

SHOSTAKOVICH CENTENARY RECTIAL TOUR

2006-07-23T09:52:00.000Z

SHOSTAKOVICH CENTENARY RECTIAL TOUR

Murray McLachlan continues his centenary recital tour, with a further nine recitals, supported by the UK Shostakovich Society and celebrating the music of Dmitri Shostakovich (born 5 September 1906). The programme ‘Shostakovich and his comrades’, includes both of the Shostakovich Sonatas, British Premiere performances of Rodion Shchedin’s recently completed Concerto for solo piano ‘ naughty limmericks’, and works by Kabalevsky, Myaskovsky and Ronald Stevenson. In addition to a performance at Wigmore Hall at 7.30pm on September 10th, there are tour dates at venues including Wesley Chapel, Harrogate June 24), Crear Concert Series , Argyll (6 August), Chetham’s International Summer School and Festival, Manchester (19 August), North Shields Master Musicians Series (8 September), University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, (10 & 31 October) Goldsmiths, London (26 October) and Liverpool University (December 6)Full concert listings are available at www.murraymclachlan.com
Programme:
Sonata no. 3 in F major, op.46 Dmitri Kabalevsky
Song and Rhapsody, op. 58 Nikolai Myaskovsky (London Premiere)
Sonata no.1op.12 (1926) Dmitri Shostakovich
INTERVAL
Recitative and Air (DSCH), ‘in memorium Dmitri Shostakovich’ Ronald Stevenson
Piano Sonata no. 2 in B minor, op. 61 (1943) Dimitri Shostakovich
‘Chastushki’: Concerto for solo piano (‘Naughty Limmericks’ ) Rodion Shchedrin (London Premiere)

Murray McLachlan has long received outstanding critical acclaim for authoritative performances in Russian Music.His prolific discography includes the complete sonatas of Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, Kabalevsky and Weinberg. He has also received widespread acclaim for his recordings of the complete Tcherepnin piano concertos, the24 Preludes and Fugues of Rodion Shchedrin and the Ronald Stevenson ‘Passacaglia on DSCH’ (‘key recording’, 2006 Penguin Guide to compact discs).

Autumn Duet recitals with Bernard Roberts

2006-07-19T22:15:00.000Z

A series of three duet recitals are scheduled for early on in the 2006-07 season with the wonderful pianist Bernard Roberts. The concerts will feature popular repertoire by Mozart, Dvorak, Schubert (F minor Fantasy) and Debussy (Petite Suite):

Friday September 29th 2006, 7.30pm Gala recital in celebration of the 90th anniversary of the Alderley Edge Festival, (ALderley Edge Methodist CHurch,Cheshire: details 01625 590731)

Sunday 1st October 2006 7.30pm Recital at Theatr Ardudwy, Harlech (Box office: 01766 780667)

Tuesday October 3 2006, 7.15pm Opening Concert in the Chetham's International Piano Series, Whiteley Hall, Chetham's School of Music, Long Millgate Manchester (tickets: 0161 834 9644).

Current Projects

2006-07-18T21:13:00.000Z

Sixth Chetham's International Festival and Summer School for Pianists: August 19-26 2006 (check out http://www.piano-festival.co.uk for full information on the UK's largest summer school devoted exclusively to the piano)

Shostakovich Centenary recital tour, including Sept 10 concert at Wigmore Hall: Programme includes both Shostakovich Sonatas, the British Premiere of Rodion Shchedrin's Concerto for solo Piano ('Naughty Limmericks'), and works by Ronald Stevenson (Recitative and Air on DSCH) Kabalevsky (Sonata no. 3 in F major), and Myaskovsky ('Song and Rhapsody, op. 58. The tour moves into phase two from June 06, following performances in Birmingham (Adrian Boult Hall, Feb), St. Andrews University (YOunger Hall, also Feb 06), RNCM 'Shostakovich and his comrades' chamber music festival in Manchester (January 06) and Doncaster (also Jan 06). These earlier recitals substituted Weinberg's rarely heard 2nd Sonata and Prokofiev's monumental sixth Sonata instead of the Shchedrin and the 2nd Shostakovich sonata.

'Masterclass' articles in 'International Piano' magazine: Murray McLachlan's 'column' on piano technique is well established, and already nearing its 30th instalment. Recent articles on memory, stamina, pedalling and 'key bedding' continue the momentum. Next essay on 'self listening' to follow in the Sept-October edition www.international-piano.com

'Unsung Heroes' column in 'Piano Magazine'. Equally successful is the series of articles in Rhinegold publishing's Piano quarterly, in which an enormous number of composers have been examined, including Clementi, Busoni, Stevenson, Camilleri, etc, etc. August issue out shortly wil feature an in depth study of Shostakovich's 1st Sonata and a re-examination of Myaskovsky, the 'father of the Soviet symphony' www.rhinegold.co.uk

Breaking News 'Music on the web'

2006-07-18T20:56:00.000Z

New review just published by 'Music on the web' of the Bartok 2 Piano and Percussion Sonata, Stravinsky 'Rite of Spring' and Charles Camilleri 'Concerto for 2 Pianos and Percussion' disc (It can be found at www.musicwebinternational.com/

Herewith in its entirety:

www.dunelm-records.co.uk
Innovations: Music by Camilleri, Stravinsky and Bartok
Charles CAMILLERI (b. 1931) Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion (2005) [20.59]
Igor STRAVINSKY (1882-1971) The Rite of Spring (1912-13 revised 1947) Reduction for piano duet by the composer. [34.18]
Bela BARTOK (1881-1945) Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937) [26.51]
Kathryn Page; Murray McLachlan (piano)
Heather Corbett; Stephen Burke (percussion)
rec. Whiteley Hall, Manchester, 1 Sept 2005, 28 Jan 2006. DDD Stereo
DUNELM RECORDS DRDO258. [2 CDs: 82.11]

From ever-enterprising Dunelm comes this interesting disc of works both new and old. The Stravinsky and Bartok pieces are classics, although the former’s The Rite of Spring is played here in the composer’s own arrangement for piano duet. The new work is Charles Camilleri’s Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion which was written in part as a response to Bartok’s Sonata for the same combination of instruments.
Camilleri was born in Malta but is a cosmopolitan figure who has lived in London and New York. His work is not particularly well known in this country but it was as a result of his visit to Chetham’s School of Music Summer School, 2004 that the new concerto was written. It was Murray McLachlan who suggested to the composer the possibility of writing a piece that used the same forces as Bartok’s work. The resulting work is a colourful addition to what is a small repertoire for this type of ensemble. The composer has written that he wanted to explore the possibility of treating tonality, modality and atonality as equal partners. In so doing he has avoided the trap of diffusion and eclecticism. How he does this is by means of a subtle blending of the compositional elements. Modal fragments figure much in the slow central movement but they appear almost as folk memories amid the shifting harmonies that surround them. The tonal elements are often quickly subverted by dissonance; the harmonies remain mobile in a way that sometimes suggests Boulez, particularly in parts of the first movement. The percussion instruments are used both rhythmically and colouristically. The last movement is propelled by tambourine and snare drum in a way that recalls Lambert’s Rio Grande. This is a resourceful and enjoyable new work.
Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring is so familiar in its orchestral form that I was initially sceptical about its chances of success as a piano duet. The CD booklet describes the version as a reduction so it is not clear whether the composer intended it to be performed as a concert piece or whether he had in mind the rehearsal needs of the corps de ballet and their preparations with a pair of pianistic répétiteurs. Whatever the reason this new recording is very welcome and actually highlights different aspects of the work when compared to the orchestral version. Despite its percussive nature the piano can’t quite match the brutality of Stravinsky’s orchestration. In The Augurs of Spring the piano is no match for the savage string chords and barking horns. What this version reveals is a remarkable clarity of harmony, as if this most colourful of scores was being subjected to a Brahmsian ‘black and white’ test. Time and time again I found myself stopping the recording to replay sections whose harmony seemed strangely new despite my having known the work for nearly forty years. Often I was convinced of the influence of Debussy, a composer whom I had not hitherto considered in relation to this work. Despite the reduction from more than a hundred players to just two, the concluding Sacrificial Dance is still thrilling and this is largely due to the performance which is superb throughout. Page and McLachlan have done a great service in allowing us to hear Stravinsky’s music afresh and I would recommend this version to anyone interested in one of the monuments of 20th century music.
With Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion the performers tackle another masterpiece and they do so with aplomb. The work is also available in an expanded version for two pianos and orchestra but the original chamber version of 1938 is presented here. Eminent musicologist, Lendvai, has teased out some of Bartok’s structural devises used in works of this period such as symmetry, the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Section – good for him! The overarching impression of the Sonata is not in fact that of a clever design but of a profound and chilling musical statement that received its first performance only two months before the Nazi Anschluss of Austria, an event that filled the composer with dismay. It is perhaps wrong to attach the work too closely to political events but there is something very sinister about the strange, loping chords and bursts of percussion with which the first movement begins. The performance on this disc is a fine one; I particularly enjoyed the reading of the mysterious slow movement with its dark, swirling colours and scurrying insects. The rhythmic finale carries the listener along with its energy and good spirits. When I hear the opening xylophone theme I am always reminded of Shostakovich, the composer Bartok was to lampoon a few years later in the Concerto for Orchestra.
This disc is very well served by the recording engineer; the pianos sound warm but clear and the percussion is bright – listen to the crackle of the suspended cymbal near the start of the Camilleri and the wash of vibraphone later in that work. All three works presented are valuable and the Camilleri concerto should now find a place in programmes that feature Bartok’s sonata. A thought provoking and rewarding issue.
David Hackbridge Johnson

Murray McLachlan: Breaking News

Live Dates

2005-10-05T08:55:00.000Z

MURRAY MCLACHLAN AUTUMN TOUR 2005:
‘Final Thoughts The Last Sonatas of the Viennese Classics’

During 2005 Murray McLachlan toured the UK with a unique programme, which placed the final sonatas of each of the great Viennese composers in context:

Sonata in E flat, Hob.XVI/62 Haydn
Sonata in D major, K. 576 Mozart
Sonata no. 32 in C minor, op.111 Beethoven
INTERVAL
Sonata in B flat, D. 960 Schubert

Dates on the tour include:
25 September - Music in Lymm
7 October - Bute Arts Society
8 October - Mid Argyll Music Society
11 October - Chetham’s School of Music International Piano Series, Manchester
17 October - Oban Arts Society
18 October - Kintyre Music Club, Campbeltown
19 October - Islay Arts Association
21 October - North Shields Master Musicians Recital Series
26 October - Durham Lunchtime series (Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven only)
6 November- Gatehouse Music Society
8 November - Repton Subscription Concerts series
13 November - Dumfermline Arts Guild
14 November - Galashiels Arts Association