Mini Piano Festival!

Once again, the Brisbane Music Festival has shown itself to be the hidden gem of Brisbane’s festival scene, with an intriguing Mini Piano Festival programme. Roger Cui opened with ‘Transcendence’ and he introduced his programme of pieces, explaining that Franz Liszt’s 12 short evocative Transcendental Études were originally designed as study exercises. Well, when I learnt piano, we started with ‘A dozen a day’ practice exercises – Litszt’s more expansive version features some of the most challenging keyboard work ever, designed to give pianists the skills to ‘transcend’ their abilities. This sounds like the forthcoming music would be contrived and unlistenable – but the opposite is true. While any film composer working today could use Liszt’s pieces as a blueprint for any filmic mood, they are beautiful pieces in their own right, covering a range of emotions, scenes of nature, and passions. I was not surprised to learn that Roger is joint creator of the Black-Note Production Studio which focuses on film music scoring. This multi-talented touring concert pianist has a thoughtful presence, and his ability is astounding, bringing these complex works to life effortlessly. The challenging nature of the pieces was in contrast to Roger’s own easy-going and calm personality and I thoroughly enjoyed how he split the works up to explain the composer’s intentions and give us a bit of historical background to the musical era. It also allowed us to applaud generously to each bracket, which was thoroughly deserved. You could imagine Litszt – the rock star of his day – performing to enthralled salons in Paris, and sharing evenings out with his friend and fellow composer, Frédéric Chopin. After a rousing three ‘curtain calls’ Roger decided that perhaps we’d had enough of études for one evening and he treated us instead to Chopin’s ‘Nocturnes’ by way of encore, which was a delightful way to end his performance.

The second part of the programme featured the festival’s Artistic Director, Alex Raineri, who went seamlessly from MC for Roger’s set to performing his own selection of pieces about nature in ‘Nature Spirit’. This wonderful and eclectic mix included two original Australian compositions (‘Nature Spirit’ by Corrina Bonshek and ‘Glenro’ by Connor D’Netto – both composers were in the audience to enjoy the performance) and works by Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Nono, Messiaen and McCartney (a lovely interpretation of ‘Blackbird’) that all paid tribute to the wonders of nature, and particularly birdlife. There was Mikhail Glinka’s ‘The Lark’ and Stravinsky’s ‘The Firebird’ and a wonderful rendition of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Birds of Victorian England’. This was a lovely showcase of what the Brisbane Music Festival is all about – commissioning new works and reviving past treasures, while ensuring that the audience is enlightened and thoroughly entertained. The Holy Trinity Hall has great acoustics for music too, which helped complete with the enthusiastic piano man at the nearby wine bar (which Roger and Alex both handled with aplomb). The piano man did his best to join the mini-fest, but his electric Korg was no match for the mighty Kawai Grand! But as his faint strains of Fekaris and Perren’s ‘I Will Survive’ tried to bleed into the hall, I could not help but smile and think that Franz Litszt and his Romantic era contemporaries would be pleased at the juxtaposition.

The Brisbane Music Festival reconvenes in December: https://brismusicfestival.com

Beth Keehn

Photos of Roger Cui (top) and Alex Raineri (lower), courtesy of Brisbane Music Festival