Thomas Kelly ‘the outrageous virtuoso’, the Devil of the Deep Blue Sea in Hampstead Garden Suburb Fellowship House, London
It must have been a long time since the sedate respectable ladies of this garden suburb were seen to cheer and clap with such fervour!
Just as the refined noble ladies of the Parisian salons of the eighteenth century were transformed into wild admirers of Liszt with animalesque fervour.Or the critics in the 1920’s exclaiming on the the arrival of Horowitz in their midst as ‘the greatest pianist alive or dead!’
This surely was the Hampstead Garden Suburb’s equivalent as they were astonished, amazed and seduced by piano playing that had such a bewitching power over the audience.
A ‘Campanella’ of Busoni proportions or a Midsummer night in Rachmaninov’s dream hands .There followed a ‘Mephisto Waltz’ of Horowitzian contortions but above all the calming balm of Ravel’s Jeux d’eau that revealed even more the remarkably delicate artistry of this young virtuoso.
Read more here at Christopher Axworthy’s blog
