Kalaidos as a guest at the Tessmar recording studio

Frank-Thomas Mitschke - This is not the first time that the Kalaidos University of Music has organized a concert and recording at the Tessmar recording studio in Hanover. The young pianists worked with Lev Natochenny and Martin Stadtfeld from June 18 to 20 under professional conditions that could not have been better, in a friendly and familiar atmosphere thanks to Karl and Rita Tessmar, and in a chamber music hall including a Steinway grand piano that leaves nothing to be desired acoustically. With great patience, pedagogical ingenuity and a high level of artistic competence, the two renowned pianists and teachers illuminated the details as well as the large arcs of the works to be worked on.

The course ended with a final concert by the participants, in which some of the results of the intensive work were impressively presented to the audience present in Hanover as well as to the livestreamed audience.

Oscar Paz-Suaznabar opened the students' concert with Liszt's "cloches de Genève", which Martin Stadtfeld preceded with three preludes and fugues by Bach as well as his own arrangement of a work by Handel. Oscar Paz-Suaznabar played the last of Chopin's Etudes op. 10 with a clear structure and very sparing use of the right pedal, accentuating the rhythm of the right hand while the left hurled its cascades across the keyboard. Nina del Ser dreamed her way, perhaps a little defensively at times, through two nocturnes by Chopin, whose Scherzo in B flat minor was brought to life in the hands of Jan Liebermann. While the young musician still has potential for development in terms of a coherent overall conception of the work, he knew how to convince the audience with many beautiful details.

Vladyslav Shelepov took on the intimate late piano music of Brahms and impressed with his sensitive interpretation of a selection of pieces from op. 117 and 118. Alexander Preiss gave a convincing and gripping performance of the first two ballades by Chopin. Nuron Mukumi concluded the concert with a virtuoso and powerful rendition of three pieces from Peter Tchaikovsky's op. 72, which left nothing to be desired.

The previous evening, Martin Stadtfeld had presented a piano recital. He began his piano recital at Tonstudio Tessmar with three preludes and fugues from the first volume of Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. And he made it clear right from the start what his intention was: the music is not simply there, but is created under his hands at the moment of sounding. Slowly, feeling its way in, almost unreal, the theme of the C sharp minor fugue makes its way into pianistic reality, only to build up to an impressive climax in a monumental build-up, like a fugal tsunami. Immediately afterwards, attaca, the joyful Prelude in D major with fugue enchanted the audience with its completely different impulse, but nevertheless presented as a unit. Far removed from any mechanical, unwinding triplet uniformity, Martin Stadtfeld presents the Prelude and Fugue in D minor. He forms melodic arcs from these broken chordal flows with great calm that many other interpreters have not found.

Stadtfeld presented his own arrangement of Handel's "Lascia, ch'io pianga" as a dream in a thousand piano nuances, with many small ramifications of figurative accompanying voices and a wonderfully sung part in the middle voice.

Schubert's great B flat major Sonata was, in Stadtfeld's hands, quite capable of disturbing in a positive sense. Where other pianists solemnly celebrate the opening theme and create an atmosphere of absolute calm, of detachment from all earthly thoughts, Stadtfeld begins emphatically in this world, briskly, not questioning, but clearly affirming - and by no means avoiding exposed dynamics. But the more the first movement draws to a close, the more question marks Stadtfeld places in this theme, only to let it fade away, ending the first movement, quasi floating, questioning and unanswered. An interpretation that is perhaps not in line with common listening expectations, but which convincingly offers a refreshingly different approach to the interpretation of this work.

The pianist creates the infinite sadness of the second movement to die for, with nuances of touch between pianissimo and piano that one can only dream of for this Schubertian treasure.

Stadtfeld plays the third movement at a tight tempo, without allowing himself any tempo shifts, and then, shortly before the end of the seemingly virtuoso final movement, freezes the music once again, allowing it to freeze, presenting it to the audience as a kind of skeleton. An interpretation full of unexpected views and insights, full of tension, unusual and fresh as well as questioning traditional listening habits.

A powerful, stirring and, despite all the sound development, always transparent and clear performance of Sergei Prokofiev's Toccata concluded a program that was quite rightly rewarded by the audience with bravos and rapturous applause.

Horst Richter enriched the program with three short stories about the piano, which he presented to the audience with a sonorous voice and a gripping performance.