Mikhail Bouzine – breaking down barriers for the Keyboard Trust
Extraordinary goings on at Steinways last night and a wonderful advertisement for the resilience of their magnificent instruments. This was for me especially poignant having heard the most poetic of all pianists, Steven Osborne suddenly turning into a violent maniac as he attacked another magnificent Steinway at the Wigmore Hall with a performance of Rzewski’s Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues.
But then tonight this young Russian trained pianist, living in exile in Germany, opened a window to a new world.’ Breaking Barriers’ might well have been the title instead of ‘The Happier Eden’. Mikhail tonight reminded me of another pianist with a gigantic technique who was much promoted and lauded by the most ‘established’ of ‘establishment’ figures ,William Glock. Head of music at the BBC for several decades and having studied at Oxford and later with Schnabel he broke down all the conventional concert programming rules of the usual Overture, Concerto Symphony formula.
Read more here at Christopher Axworthy’s blog
