Sebastian Stanley at Aldenham School**** (From Watford Observer)

Sebastian Stanley at Aldenham School****

4:37pm Wednesday 31st March 2010 in Reviews

At the beginning of March, Aldenham School’s music department played host to what was an astonishing display of virtuosity, from a young and talented artist, Sebastian Stanley, an international soloist who also teaches some of the top piano students in the School. Refinement, excitement, and sheer musicianship were laid before his audience as Sebastian engaged with the music of Haydn, Schubert, Liszt, Albeniz, Chopin, Mompou and Wagner, at the school’s Yamaha grand piano, kindly donated by the Davis family two years ago. Having studied under such names as Olga Kern, John Lill, and Christopher Elton, Stanley proves himself worthy of the highest praise.

The programme opened with Haydn’s C major Sonata (Hob. XVI:50), giving Sebastian the opportunity to show off his superb musical balance, and excellent control over the keyboard. Yet for all its refinement, this performance lacked nothing of fire and life – a rousing third movement, and some explosive ornamentation in the opening made sure of this.

Having dealt with the classical era in one fell swoop, Sebastian moved on to the romantic masters, with a focus on the transcriptions of Franz Liszt. Beginning with two of Liszt’s beautiful song transcriptions of Schubert’s creation, Sebastian opened our eyes to a sudden outpouring of colour and emotion. The shimmering qualities of these transcriptions were mesmerising both to the ear, and to the eye.

This was followed by three movements from Albeniz’s notoriously difficult Iberia Suites (book 1) and Mompou’s Variations on Chopin’s A major Prelude, the shortest of the preludes at only 8 bars long. Despite this, Mompou’s extensive and endless creativity takes the listener through a whole world of variations, reminiscent at one moment of Rachmaninov, and at another, of Gershwin, drawing not only on the A major Prelude, but also on others of Chopin’s masterpieces. Sebastian’s imagination provides the perfect backdrop for this astonishing work.

To close the evening, Sebastian returned to the Hungarian Virtuoso, Franz Liszt, to his transcription of Wagner’s “Liebestöd” (from Tristan und Isolde), and to his own Tarantella. Both were stunning. Wagner’s vast orchestration was vividly brought to life by one man, with awesome control of dynamics and musical phrasing. Liszt’s Tarantella was breath-taking in both its speed and its accuracy, and in its delicate shaping – an all too rare combination!

After much applause and cries for more, Sebastian showcased a most brilliant and recent work by Ukrainian pianist-composer, Nikolai Kapustin. Kapustin’s Etude in Minor 2nds (2004) – a work exploring the technical and expressive possibilities of the smallest (traditional) musical interval – left the audience in wonder. Sebastian jokes, “the piece lasts about three minutes...and took me about 4 months to learn. I’m going to be using this encore for a while now!”

Our thanks go to Sebastian for his fine recital. We wish him all the best for what should be a very exciting career.

George Rose