Max Walsh at St James’s Picccadilly with youthful passion, authority and fearless mastery
Just three works on Max Walsh’s programme, all masterpieces written in different periods but that were linked by the common denominator of this young pianist’s authority and fearless mastery of the keyboard. He has just finished at the Junior Birmingham Conservatoire and is about to embark on full time studies with Norma Fisher at the Royal College of Music. A passion for music that I was aware of when I first heard him last year at the Beethoven Society Masterclass with Boris Giltberg .His uncontaminated wish to discover what was behind the notes of Beethoven’s ‘Les Adieux’ Sonata was refreshing as it was illuminating . Now almost a year later he is giving recitals of authority and remarkable mastery and intelligence and his spoken introductions showed his passionate conviction about what he was to play and what it meant to him. Scriabin’s 5th Sonata was the first work on the programme and as he told me later the reverberant acoustic of St James’s made life a little difficult for him as the quick fire changes of colour and character in the music needed time to be absorbed into the atmosphere. We the audience were not aware of the difficulty he was facing as he managed to weave an architectural line in a work where there are so many chameleonic changes of colour and atmospheres. A crystalline clarity and languid beauty when he ‘caressed’ the keys before indulging in what Scriabin describes as ‘Allegro fantastico’ and ‘Presto tumultuoso esaltato’ together with ‘ebbrezza fantastic! ‘A dynamic drive of knotty meanderings of decadence and perfumed elegance all played with an extraordinary sense of balance and imperious architectural sense of direction. The opening and the ending like a wind passing through the hall played with fearless bravado. A remarkable performance of intelligence, passionate conviction and ravishing beauty.
