Puck dances

Sam Row played Debussy preludes book 1 at Wesley.  Twelve preludes, all manner of styles and themes, presumably in 12 keys.  The themes were especially interesting, so we had Delphic dancers and winds and hills and snow and a girl with flaxen hair and Puck and minstrels and an interrupted serenade and even a flooded cathedral.  Several were mild but at least Puck and Minstrels were busy and louder.  It was just a little uncomfortable early on being a single large work and an audience unsure whether to clap between the individual preludes.  In the end, Sam and audience settled into no applause until the end  and the final audience response was generous.  Sam was impressive, not least with this whole played form memory and this fascinating collection of stories and many keys was a great pleasure, and interestingly, with introductions to each preludes following the work.  Lovely and intriguing.

Sam Row performed Debussy preludes at Wesley.

Latin who's who

Everyone loves latin music but it's hugely varied even if some core concepts can look pretty straightforward.   Straighforward, perhaps, or deceptively simple, like the forward and reverse claves on bass and the dotted rhythms and those hugely infectious montunos.  So what are these variations in this rich tapestry of musics?  Sam Row played latin musics at Wesley on piano and I was particularly interested in the first number, a history of tango in four short movements, labelled Bordello 1900, Cafe 1930, Nightclub 1960 and Concert d'aujourhui.  For the record, aujoudhui was 1985.  The bordello was the tango I think of, playful, lively, described in the notes as "Spanish women teasing the men visiting the bordello".    The cafe era was more a listening music, romantic, slower, meloncholy, sometimes sung.  The Nightclub was  era was more international, with new tango and bossa nova sharing slower tempos.  The aujourdhui had influences of Bartok and Stravinski and high art musics.  Fascinating.  Meanwhile, Sam is playing all this with intrigue and connection and from memory.  He then played Granados Allegro de concierto C#min, a piece that won competitions and fame in Spain before WW1 and indirectly led to his death on a torpedoed ship in the English Channel in 1916.  This was all rolling handfulls of notes and sweet melodies and a clear connection in my ears to film musics and popular song.  Then something contemporary, Chris Norton Latin Prelude with two passages as Rhumba and Salsa.  So two more latin musics from this fascinating and inviting scene.  Much enjoyed.

Sam Row (piano) performed Piazzolla, Granados and Norton at Wesley.

A uniqueness of the French

Sam Row has a penchant for C20th French music and it's a killer.  He played Ravel Gaspard de nuit with strange themes and 10,000+ notes in six minutes.  I'd believe it: huge rippling screeds of notes with a melody over, in left or right hand.  I'd hate to see the written music, but then he played it from memory so he doesn't need to read it on stage.  I can only admire his memory.  So what were the themes?  Ondine, the water spirit, sings to seduce a man into her underwater palace and finally turns back into water when he rejects her in favour of a human.  Le Gibet, with a man hanging from a gallows in a desert at sunrise with the sounds of bells in the distance.   And Scarbo, a goblin flitting around a bedroom until he disappears.  Strange stuff, sometimes grim.  After this, a lovely Chopin nocturne was a great relief, beautiful and restful and well known.   And a melody from Ukraine to finish as a short encore.  Again, a beguiling and challenging concert from Sam.

Sam Row (piano) performed at Wesley Music Centre.

Siècles insistent pour changer

Sam Row returned to Wesley with another concert of French music of the nouveau siècle.  Is that what it's called?  Ravel and Debussy, Paris, 1095 or thereabouts.  The Debussy was four movements of the Suite Bargamasque.  Apparently it's a masked ball or maybe a folk dance of Bergamo, the Bergamasque, including that theme we all know, Clair de Lune, taken from a poem by Verlaine, which was in the program and also seriously showing its age, at least in my reading.  Well, I guess masked balls are too.  The music is interesting, dense as busy but quite light in tone, playful, rippling, intervallic, changing tempi and deep bass but mostly lithe highs.  Then Ravel, his Sonatine, in three movements.  Sam spoke of mechanical soapbox sounds and Spanish folk songs.  Sam plays them with a light touch, perhaps suiting this music, and plays from memory, suiting any music.  I heard musical, serious, again lithe, quite and deanse but never heavy.  Just my take, I guess.  Nice one.

Sam Row (piano) performed Ravel and Debussy at Wesley Music Centre.

Another exhibition

Exhibitions.  There are a few in my life at present.  Botticelli is the obvious one.  And I'm about to play Pictures at an exhibition again.  Then this turned up: Sam Row playing the original Mussorgsky piano version of PaaE at a Wesley lunchtime session.  I was there to record and it was a wonderful reminiscence and visit to the music.  And impressive, too, how he played the work from memory.  Not just that, but also an encore, Frank Hutchins By the river.  I've spoken before how you come to know music so well by playing it.  My experience here was just more proof.  I'd played the Ravel orchestration which is the version everyone knows, but it was very similar.  Unless I haven't imbibed quite as well as I thought, the music was essentially identical.  The colours of various instruments were not there, but all the lines were.  To me, it was the same.  I sat back with eyes closed and marvelled at the vivid and various dissonant responses to the artworks and the variations on the recurring promenades.  Just a thing of huge pleasure and a thing of great admiration for Sam who did this all, so competently, and with no music.  Loved this one.

 Sam Row (piano) played the original piano version of Pictures at an exhibition and Hutchins at Wesley.