Previews
CLAIRE HAMMOND by Steve
Cooke
You can buy her CDs, hear her on Radio 3, see her at the Bridgewater and Wigmore Halls or catch her at the Purcell Room. Clare Hammond is a classical music pianist of “amazing power and panache” [Telegraph], with “crisp precision and unflashy intelligence” [Guardian].
A passionate advocate of twentieth and twenty-first century music, Clare combines formidable technique and virtuostic flair onstage with stylistic integrity and attention to detail. Not yet 30, Clare reached the finals of BBC's Young Musician of the Year (2004), won the 2006 International Students Prize, has performed across Europe, Canada and Russia and was selected for the 2010 PLG Young Artist series at the Southbank. Since her debut with orchestra aged 11 she has built up an extensive concerto repertoire which she has performed across the UK and on the continent.
A committed chamber music performer, she has collaborated with, amongst others, Andrew Kennedy, Jennifer Pike, Philippe Graffin, Laurence Power and the Dante, Endellion and Benaim String Quartets. Her CD, “Piano Polyptych”, released in 2012 on the Prime Facie label has been reviewed as “lovely modern classical piano music, brilliantly played, and well worth exploring”.
However, local music lovers no longer have to go to go London or Manchester to experience the excitement of hearing this young talent play live. Thanks to the vision of Rochdale Music Society we have the chance to see and hear Clare play right here in the Borough, when she brings her musical genius to Heywood Civic Centre, giving a recital on Saturday 22 February at 7.30pm. Her programme will include a great variety of pieces by Mendelssohn, Schubert, Mozart, Satie and Ginastera. She will begin her recital with the famous Chaccone in D minor transcribed for the left hand by Brahms on a theme by Bach.
If like me you are not familiar with the music of Ginastera you may have heard of the rock group ELP [Emerson, Lake and Palmer] who recorded the fourth movement of the Argentinian’s first piano concerto on their popular album, Brain Salad Surgery, under the title "Toccata". They recorded the piece not only with Ginastera's permission, but also with his endorsement. In 1973, when they were recording the album, Keith Emerson met with Ginastera at his home in Switzerland and played a recording of his arrangement for him. Ginastera is reported to have said, "Diabolico!" Emerson misunderstood Ginastera's meaning: Ginastera spoke almost no English and meant that their interpretation was frightening, which had been his intent when he wrote it; Emerson, being British, took it to mean "awful". Emerson was so upset that he was prepared to scrap the piece until Ginastera's wife intervened, saying that her husband approved. Ginastera later said, "You have captured the essence of my music, and no one's ever done that before."
We will also be treated to the famous Bach Chaccone which is the last movement of his Violin Partita No. 2 transcribed for the piano left-hand by Johanne Brahms. In a letter to Clara Schumann Brahms wrote “On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.”
To hear this played live by a talent like Clare Hammond is truly an opportunity not to be missed and all across the arts will be there to ask why she selected this programme.
You can buy her CDs, hear her on Radio 3, see her at the Bridgewater and Wigmore Halls or catch her at the Purcell Room. Clare Hammond is a classical music pianist of “amazing power and panache” [Telegraph], with “crisp precision and unflashy intelligence” [Guardian].
A passionate advocate of twentieth and twenty-first century music, Clare combines formidable technique and virtuostic flair onstage with stylistic integrity and attention to detail. Not yet 30, Clare reached the finals of BBC's Young Musician of the Year (2004), won the 2006 International Students Prize, has performed across Europe, Canada and Russia and was selected for the 2010 PLG Young Artist series at the Southbank. Since her debut with orchestra aged 11 she has built up an extensive concerto repertoire which she has performed across the UK and on the continent.
A committed chamber music performer, she has collaborated with, amongst others, Andrew Kennedy, Jennifer Pike, Philippe Graffin, Laurence Power and the Dante, Endellion and Benaim String Quartets. Her CD, “Piano Polyptych”, released in 2012 on the Prime Facie label has been reviewed as “lovely modern classical piano music, brilliantly played, and well worth exploring”.
However, local music lovers no longer have to go to go London or Manchester to experience the excitement of hearing this young talent play live. Thanks to the vision of Rochdale Music Society we have the chance to see and hear Clare play right here in the Borough, when she brings her musical genius to Heywood Civic Centre, giving a recital on Saturday 22 February at 7.30pm. Her programme will include a great variety of pieces by Mendelssohn, Schubert, Mozart, Satie and Ginastera. She will begin her recital with the famous Chaccone in D minor transcribed for the left hand by Brahms on a theme by Bach.
If like me you are not familiar with the music of Ginastera you may have heard of the rock group ELP [Emerson, Lake and Palmer] who recorded the fourth movement of the Argentinian’s first piano concerto on their popular album, Brain Salad Surgery, under the title "Toccata". They recorded the piece not only with Ginastera's permission, but also with his endorsement. In 1973, when they were recording the album, Keith Emerson met with Ginastera at his home in Switzerland and played a recording of his arrangement for him. Ginastera is reported to have said, "Diabolico!" Emerson misunderstood Ginastera's meaning: Ginastera spoke almost no English and meant that their interpretation was frightening, which had been his intent when he wrote it; Emerson, being British, took it to mean "awful". Emerson was so upset that he was prepared to scrap the piece until Ginastera's wife intervened, saying that her husband approved. Ginastera later said, "You have captured the essence of my music, and no one's ever done that before."
We will also be treated to the famous Bach Chaccone which is the last movement of his Violin Partita No. 2 transcribed for the piano left-hand by Johanne Brahms. In a letter to Clara Schumann Brahms wrote “On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.”
To hear this played live by a talent like Clare Hammond is truly an opportunity not to be missed and all across the arts will be there to ask why she selected this programme.
