The new spotlights in the newly renovated Ehrbar Hall outshined alongside the audience, for Aaron Pilsan was able to captivate the visitors from the beginning. Surprisingly he started with Schumann’s melancholic-cantabile Arabesque. He added this piece extra to the programme, because it was composed in Vienna in 1839. He then gave an unyielding character of Schumann’s “Carneval”, in which the mood swings between Eusebius and Florestan were outstandingly conveyed. In Grünfeld’s brisk concert paraphrase “Sourée di Vienne” and Liszt’s highly virtuose Rigoletto-Paraphrase, Pilsan demonstrated how beautifully he can bring out the middle voices, how finely he can differentiates the sounds, and how rousingly he can build up the musical tensions.
At the intimate Ehrbaar Hall, Aaron Pilsen could moderate his concert easily without needing the new loudspeakers. His fondness for George Enescu’s music surely has a lot to do with his Romanian root, as he explains. In the third suite of Enescu - with the wonderful choral and the expressive bell sounds in the last two movements - as well as the first encore, Enescu’s technically challenging Romanian Rhaphsody No.1, this emotional bond became so clear, that even the audience went wild with it. With another three encores - the preludes and fugues in C major, C minor and C sharp major from book one of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier - the previous scholarship owner of Carl Bechstein Foundation made the best promotion for his own CD-release of this cycle. Congratulation on this wonderful recital!
The series of C. Bechstein piano recital at Ehrbar Hall Vienna will continue on 2nd March at 7 o’clock: Sir András Schiff will personally present his protege, Itai Navon. On 11th May, Haiou Zhang will perform Franz Liszt’s B minor sonata as well as Beethoven’s last sonata, Op. 111. In cooperation with Sir András Schiff’s “Building Bridges“ program, Avery Gagliano will finally step on stage at Ehrbar Hall on 15th June. The tickets for all these concerts can be booked on internet now.
Tickets at Ehrbar Saal
