Festival Music
Andreas Haefliger
Queen’s Hall
Svend McEwan-Brown
five stars
MINUTES after coming on-stage, Andreas Haefliger bewitched his Queen’s Hall audience with a lucid, exquisite take on Berg’s rapturous Opus1 Sonata. Such a shame that late-comers broke the spell: his concerts benefit from minimal interruption. By staying on stage throughout the first half, he kept focus between pieces and built a powerful rapport. He uses the word "connections" a lot as a title for his recitals. He takes you off on a train of thought, and stimulating ideas abounded here: two Viennese sonatas, written a century apart (the Berg and Beethoven’s Op.101) asked what "sonata" even means. They were juxtaposed with two Romantic masterworks, Liszt’s St Francis’s Sermon to the Birds and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition: paintings in music versus "pure" Viennese music – a distinction that prompted much fractious debate in 19th century music. Champions of picture music claim that stories and images freed Romantic composers to discover structures, sounds and harmonies unlike anything heard before. Haefliger does not take sides. He gave an utterly wonderful performance of Pictures at an Exhibition; yet, simply by placing Beethoven’s Op.101 after Berg and Liszt he showed how truly individual and maverick a masterwork Beethoven created without requiring any story or subtext for inspiration.
Perhaps that all sounds a little nerdy? Well, Haefliger the thinker is also the pianist who held this audience enthralled until they leapt to their feet at the end, cheering. He has a big sound, but knows how to be thunderous not clangorous, a vital skill in Mussorgsky’s ever grander closing bars. He is not impeccable: perhaps he is a tad over-fond of the sustaining pedal, and there were tiny slips occasionally. But how could that matter when the playing is as inspiringly commanding, thoughtful, lucid and sheerly beautiful as this?
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