Kasparas Mikužis at St Mary’s Perivale
Radiance and beauty combine with fluidity and intelligence
Opening this recital with Beethoven’s most Pastoral of his last sonatas full of fantasy and ‘joie de vivre’. Coming after the Schubertian op 90 but before the cataclysmic ‘Hammerklavier’ this a breath of fresh air as Beethoven comes to terms with his deafness and taking the piano to task for its limitations, looking upwards to the glimpse of paradise that awaits.
The extraordinary thing of his Genius is that he could write down exactly the sounds he had in his ears with a precision far more than in his earlier sonatas which he would often play himself. I have noticed with the Lithuanian school of playing that there is a fluidity and purity to the sound they make, similar in many ways to the Hungarian school. Most probably not a school at all but growing up in a homeland where they pick up certain sounds which comes across in their playing and that is enviable for its relaxed fluidity and naturalness.
Read more here at Christopher Axworthy’s blog
