Piano Passion/ Yesterday evening at the Opera-Theatre of Saint-Etienne

Two pianists, two great talents

Le progres, Jean-Luc Perrot

 

The tour of Europe continues. Mists of Belgium and sun of Spain. 

 

In the first recital devoted to Belgian composers, Nikolaas Kende began with "Prelude, Fugue et Variation" by César Franck, originally written for harmonium and piano, here transcribed (by whom?) for piano solo. It was very beautiful, very nuanced, of a sovereign calm. Nikolaas Kende then interpreted composers little known of the French public, in the debussy movement: Joseph Jongen, Lodewijk Mortelmans, Robert Herberigs. The young pianist did not have his parable to translate the halftones, the obscure light, in an impressionistic atmosphere. Poet to the end of his fingers, he finished with Franck's "Prelude, Choral and Fugue", a turn in suppleness and refinement, knowing how to thwart the meanders of this complex work with multiple chatterings. With much simplicity, Nikolaas Kende offered in bis a short movement of a sonata of Schubert: charming and of extreme delicacy.