Another concert. This one by local James Huntingford, pianist and two-times winner of the relevant National Eisteddfod. Locally born and bred and student of various local schools and presumably school music departments, as well as ANU. He's capable, young, energetic and played capable, energetic music with admirable skills. Interestingly, James introduced the concert with his own, milder, slower and more musing prelude. The big work was five movements of Liszt, his Piano sonata in B minor. This requires undeniably virtuoso skills. It's moody but quick and also energetic and flowing with quick scales and phrases. Every now and again, there's a stop for pause, but it's mostly busy in a romantic diatonic way. At one point it stopped, I hoped for a b5 but got a more predictable b7. This is the period and no argument there, but with an ear exposed to twentieth century, I was just a touch disappointed. But no question about the performance. This is big, powerful, unrelenting. It works through five movements and plenty of pages. No time to turn pages, so a turner required. James is a source of pride for our local, decaying music scene. I can only admire his capability and commitment and hope our senior music school can keep producing them.
James Huntingford (piano) performed Liszt and his own prelude at Wesley.
We saw James (son of an acquaintance of ours) perform on Sunday with Kiri Sollis - he on harpsichord and she on flute. A wonderful concert of mainly French Baroque. As you say a credit to our scene. Is it decaying? The fact that people like him, and Kiri and Michael Sollis are still here, for example, is a positive sign??
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