Saw one of the most unbelievable concerts ive ever seen on Wed. Hamelin played a Haydn Sonata, Schumann Carnival, Wolpe Passacaglia, 3 Debussy Preludes & Liszt Norma fantasy. Then for an encore a Chopin Nocturne. Did anybody else go? Id love if somebody recorded it! I want to relive it all again. Afterwards I went to meet him and asked him about future recording projects. Apparently hes dropped the Beethoven Sonatas project and hes working on a disc or solo Busoni piano works. He said an airing was well overdue.
This was QEH right? Wish I could have been there. Great reviews too ( classicalsource.com/db_contr … hp?id=9139 ). I saw him play Beethoven 4 last weekend in Edinburgh/Glasgow, which was fantastic. It’s as close to a “religious experience” as I, an agnostic, can get! I asked him about recording plans before his manager came in and the topic changed! So I’m glad to know about the Busoni. I wonder what pieces he’ll play? His playing just gets better and better every time I see him… especially recently, his phrasing and tone/colouring seems to be exceptionally well-considered.
Oh, I just remembered that he’s playing some Busoni at this years’ Husum. The programme is:
*Busoni - Kanonische Variationen und Fuge (über das Thema Friedrich des Großen) aus J. S. Bach’s “Musikalisches Opfer”
*Busoni - Sonatine No.1
*Busoni - Sonatina seconda
*Busoni - Sonatina ad usum infantis
*Busoni - 10 Variations after a Chopin preulde
*Liszt - Fantasy and Fugue on the theme B-A-C-H
*Faure - 6th Nocturne
*Hamelin - Variations on a theme of Paganini (World premiere)
I don’t know if you heard about the variations - 10 mins long, he wrote one variation in 1994 and one in 1997, and completed the work over the last year.
He’s also playing the Busoni concerto at least once, at Carnegie Hall, next year (I remember hearing of another performance of the concerto next year, but can’t remember if it was him as pianist). So he’s having a bit of a Busoni-fest!
I’ve never heard about the variations! Something new to look forward to then, his compositions are really quite something.
My elder brother turned up at the concert, and he said he didn’t have recording equipment 
It was a very good concert, but from my perspective in the top corner it wasn’t an all time classic. I was half way through the book ‘Hamelin and the 8’ when the concert took place, also having made myself familiar with his recordings of Carnaval and Norma over the preceding months (I didn’t know either pieces before this).
Some of the problems Hamelin himself identified in the book were still somewhat present in the concert - a tendency to rush, to the detriment of expression, even if everything just about stays together - in the book, this was described as ‘leaving only ashes’ at the end of the piece.
I don’t want to undermine Hamelin’s brilliance - he’s by far the most interesting, adventurous pianist, perhaps in history and in my opinion at his best is artistically superior to anything on record.
I wish he would come more often to London. 
Busoni recording makes sense! We are so lucky he is with Hyperion.
His Beethoven last 3 sonatas at their best are wonderful - though he (like almost everyone) plays the last movement of op.109 ‘adagio’ rather than ‘andante’; the main problem from what I’ve heard is the extreme adagissimo which he takes for the arietta of op.111. In particular the fastest dotted note variation (3rd variation), instead of being exuberant like with most recordings, sounds rather awkward. The rest of the movement struggles to articulate itself at this speed, too.
Nice!!, I can’t wait for his future Busoni recs… Any chance of recording that programme somehow? Must find a way to listen… 
( mostly interested by the musical offering and his varations premiere ) Also what the hell is HUSUM ? 
“The grey town by the sea” as its most famous native called it in one of his most famous poems; a small town in the North of Germany on the shores of the North Sea, no more than about 2 1/2 hours by train from Hamburg; home not only of Theodor Storm, but also to the festival “Raritäten der Klaviermusik”, where some of the more obscure works of the pianistic literature are performed each summer: http://www.piano-festival-husum.de/. And as a bit of totally gratuitous information: it is also the dative (locative) plural of (an older form of) the Low German word for “house”, i.e. “by the houses”.
Zamunda
Sorry I am not conversant with your argot (and probably never will be) - hope you don’t mind if I don’t even try … but I am fascinated by it.
the husum festival is possibly one of the most important piano festivals in the world. it is better than the klavierfest ruhr in my opinion, which is full of too many hack pianists.
Congratulation on one the best answers at dasdc!
in da history of dasdc 
next time da koji plays there i’m going there
datz what I ment to write 
You are too generous …
Thanks for the answer , and dont worry about the “argot” 
henceforth tha SDC lingo now referrd to az tha SDC Argah
Crap, I had tickets to the concert on 13 April but could not attend (was rehearsing for a performance of Chopin E minor on the following evening). I heard fantastic things about his Norma (doubly annoyed to have missed that, as I’ll be playing it in recital in June).
I have just been given 2 tickets to Lang Lang at the RFH on 17 May. This is the first time I’ve ever said this, but… FML.
HAHAHAH yea that sucks 