He may not be the most famous musical Swede - in terms of name-recognition that would be Benny of Abba fame rather than Bengt the long-term recital partner of the divine Anne Sofie von Otter - but everyone in the business seems to adore Forsberg, a true musicians' pianist (and the only one I've ever seen unostentatiously to shake hands with his page turner). His boundless curiosity has always contributed to the repertoire of the great artists he works with; last night he stepped into the limelight - modest in presentation, infinitely tender in slow movements but tough as a top virtuoso needs to be in the fieriest works of his 11 chosen composers.
While the start was the fount, Bach's C sharp minor Prelude and Fugue directly presented but with subtle freedom of tempi and careful independent voicing, the summit had to be Schumann's Toccata, perhaps the most punishing of all shorter piano pieces on the fingers. I've heard it despatched with bravura, but never anything like the meaning Forsberg brought to it, maintaining a poise that miraculously suggested stillness at the heart of all that non-stop motion. There was heartbreaking Schumann, too: the ineffable song without words in the G minor Sonata, the baritonal tenderness of the F sharp major Romance. Here are two pieces made for Forsberg's sophistication. He makes you aware of how much further they can evolve in their later stages, along with Chopin's C sharp minor Prelude, which followed on the heels of the Bach and the Chopin reincarnated in the early-20th-century mode of miraculous later Fauré, than the other pretty miniatures he chose.
Which is not to belittle the charm of Swede Peterson-Berger's church picture or Stenhammar's nobly-wrought Impromptu in G flat major. Stenhammar, Forsberg told us in one of his charmingly natural and soft-spoken narratives, was an extraordinary pianist, one of the first to play all the Beethoven sonatas in public, and yet here was a composer who spent much more time on symphonies and string quartets than on piano music.
Another, even simpler bonne bouche, Lillebror Söderlundh's Soave, was served up as the calm antidote to the tormented rhetoric of Howard Ferguson's F minor Sonata. Forsberg champions plenty of British and Irish composers before Swedish audiences when they let him, he said, but this is one he might discard. So many notes, with plenty of opportunity for Forsberg's cutting left-hand thunder, so little of interest actually said; it's a relief when Ferguson briefly slips into Elgarian nostalgia.
Much more to the point was cellist-composer Mats Lidström's exuberant, rhythmically ingenious and brief homage to the figure-skating feat of The Hamill Camel, stroppy prelude to the Schumann Toccata. That was the official, glittering end of the evening; but trust Forsberg's encores to be as compelling as his advertised programme. A Sibelius étude sent us away smiling, but the greater revelation was Percy Grainger's passionate hymn of praise to the woman he married once his dragon mother had finally shuffled off her snaky mortal coil, To a Nordic Princess. Here was another seemingly free ramble turning unexpected corners just like the Fauré Barcarolle and Nocturne. So can we have a Grainger evening next, please, Herr Forsberg?
Which is not to belittle the charm of Swede Peterson-Berger's church picture or Stenhammar's nobly-wrought Impromptu in G flat major. Stenhammar, Forsberg told us in one of his charmingly natural and soft-spoken narratives, was an extraordinary pianist, one of the first to play all the Beethoven sonatas in public, and yet here was a composer who spent much more time on symphonies and string quartets than on piano music.
Another, even simpler bonne bouche, Lillebror Söderlundh's Soave, was served up as the calm antidote to the tormented rhetoric of Howard Ferguson's F minor Sonata. Forsberg champions plenty of British and Irish composers before Swedish audiences when they let him, he said, but this is one he might discard. So many notes, with plenty of opportunity for Forsberg's cutting left-hand thunder, so little of interest actually said; it's a relief when Ferguson briefly slips into Elgarian nostalgia.
Much more to the point was cellist-composer Mats Lidström's exuberant, rhythmically ingenious and brief homage to the figure-skating feat of The Hamill Camel, stroppy prelude to the Schumann Toccata. That was the official, glittering end of the evening; but trust Forsberg's encores to be as compelling as his advertised programme. A Sibelius étude sent us away smiling, but the greater revelation was Percy Grainger's passionate hymn of praise to the woman he married once his dragon mother had finally shuffled off her snaky mortal coil, To a Nordic Princess. Here was another seemingly free ramble turning unexpected corners just like the Fauré Barcarolle and Nocturne. So can we have a Grainger evening next, please, Herr Forsberg?
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