It is rare that Bangkok audiences get the opportunity to hear a soloist with the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra also perform a recital. It is therefore with considerable excitement that many are looking forward to the piano recital by distinguished German pianist Severin von Eckardstein on Friday in the Main Hall of the Thailand Cultural Centre. The evening prior, he will have performed the popular piano concerto by Edvard Grieg.
This special recital is part of the RBSO celebrations marking the birthday of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit The Queen Mother. The concert is organised by the RBSO Foundation under the Royal Patronage of Her Royal Highness Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya and the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
Von Eckardstein has established a worldwide reputation as a pianist of distinction. Born in Dusseldorf in 1978, he studied at the University of Arts in Berlin, and also took lessons from two of the greatest pianists of their day, Alfred Brendel and Alicia de Larrocha.
He went on to become a prize winner at several major international competitions, including First Prize in the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels in 2003, an accolade shared by such major international pianists as Emil Gilels, Leon Fleischer and Vladimir Ashkenazy.
For his recital, he has chosen a varied programme of works largely from the Romantic and late-Romantic repertoire. An interesting feature is the links that the composers have to each other. The first half is devoted to music by Brahms and Robert Schumann, composers whose lives became totally intertwined, through music, friendship and then Brahms' devotion to Schumann's wife, the celebrated pianist Clara Schumann.
In 1853, when Brahms was just 19, Robert Schumann was lauded as the greatest composer in Germany. Brahms was desperate to meet him, and eventually wrote to Schumann, saying that he himself was a composer and hoped to learn from "the Master". No doubt Schumann received hundreds of such letters, but something made him write back. He invited Brahms not only to come and play for him but also to stay in their home for a few weeks.
On the first afternoon, Robert invited Brahms to perform a sonata the younger man had just composed. Robert became engrossed, then called his wife to come immediately to hear the young man play.
"Something quite extraordinary," he told her. "Music such as you have never heard before."
During the course of Brahms' visit, a flame was lit. The future relationship between the three was to become one of the most famous love triangles in all of music history. Unknown to Brahms, though, Robert was suffering from a mental disorder that doctors could not diagnose. Schumann heard voices and suffered from fits of depression followed by periods of excitement and great activity.
In one of his depressive moods, he threw himself into the River Rhine in 1853. Fortunate to be rescued, he demanded to be admitted to a mental asylum. Once there, he refused visits from Clara, allowing only Brahms to visit him. Brahms spent much time at the asylum, telling Clara about her husband's condition and their discussions after each visit.
Clara wrote: "Brahms is my dearest and truest support; he has not left me since the start of Robert's illness." What Brahms could not tell Clara was that he had fallen hopelessly in love with her. When Robert died in 1856, Clara was finally able to reveal to Brahms that his feelings were reciprocated. They were now free to marry.
The couple went for a holiday in Switzerland. Then, for reasons we can only speculate, Brahms abruptly announced he was leaving for Hamburg. The lady who was his greatest passion, perhaps the only true love of his life, was left to wave goodbye to his train. We do not know Brahms' reasons for ending the relationship. Over the 40 remaining years of his life, Brahms never married.
Severin von Eckardstein. Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra
Von Eckardstein's recital opens with Schumann's Fantasiestücke Op.12, followed by Brahms' Klavierstücke Op.118, No.1 and No.2, and a rhapsody from Op.119, No.4. The second half of the recital begins with a Mazurka and Nocturne by Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin.
Chopin was born in the same year as Schumann. Also, like Schumann, he suffered from a severe illness, discovered to be cystic fibrosis following his death aged just 39. Schumann was a great admirer of Chopin, and is said to have referred to him as a "genius". Chopin spent most of his adult life based in Paris, where he became close friends with another great Romantic composer, Franz Liszt.
Von Eckardstein's recital concludes with works by two later composers, Russians Alexander Scriabin and Nikolai Medtner. Scriabin wrote his Five Preludes in 1895. These early short pieces (the final one lasts just 30 seconds) owe much to the influence of Chopin and Liszt, with occasional hints of his fellow Russian, Sergei Rachmaninov.
At the end of the 19th century, Rachmaninov, Scriabin and Medtner were Russia's three leading composers. Medtner's compositions, mostly for the piano, earned him widespread renown. Some years after the 1917 revolution, he left Russia, eventually settling in England. For a time, in addition to performing, he lived off the royalties from his music, but these eventually dried up. Worse, Medtner's health was deteriorating, putting added strain on his family.
Just when things seemed at their bleakest, an unlikely patron surfaced. The fabulously wealthy Maharaja of Mysore in India was a committed anglophile and music lover. Struck by Medtner's music, he founded the Medtner Society with the aim of recording all of the composer's works. Medtner dedicated his Third Piano Concerto to the Maharaja.
Von Eckardstein's recital includes Medtner's Sonata-Elegy, Op.11, No.2, the second of three short works in what Medtner named his Sonata Triad. Although these short pieces were dedicated to the composer's brother-in-law, who had committed suicide in 1906, the overall mood of this gentle elegy is sunny and full of hope.
The final works are five pieces from Tchaikovsky's Op.72 series of Klavierstücke. For whatever reason, Tchaikovsky did not enjoy the music of Brahms and avoided meeting the older composer for many years. Eventually they met for dinner. Breaking the ice between the two was another attendee, none other than composer Edvard Grieg. The hatchet was quickly buried and both composers soon warmed to each other's compositions.
Tickets are 400, 800, 1,200, 1,600 and 2,000 baht, available via thaiticketmajor.com and rbsothailand.com.
