DANIEL LEBHARDT AT PEMBROKE AUDITORIUM
On what has to be the hottest evening of the year the solo pianist Daniel Lebhardt strode on to the newly unveiled stage of at Pembroke College’s just acquired space. They bought it outright against some competition from Queens’ - and transformed it into a modern no-expense-spared auditorium. The dour Protestant Cambridge landmark, is now an ultra-modern masterpiece of cool wood, breathtaking brickwork (apparently - my companions marvelled at the workmanship even from the outside)
A massive new Steinway (they are huge) awaited the Hungarian star: he was certainly a match for the instrument’s mighty presence. This was a solo performance, but the sonority was unsurpassed. Ray Dolby the American super-innovator of sound technology had, like Clive James, a post graduate scholarship to Pembroke – the link has paid off with his involvement in the new building and it certainly showed in the sound the Steinway gave us last night.
But what is an instrument without an artist? Daniel Lebhart could surely play a pub piano and have the audience enraptured. Every note was magically mastered, no sheet music for him – the entire performance came from within, unprompted, this genius of the instrument projected into the gloriously restored interior – marred only by stage over-lighting some audience members found dazzlingly irksome.
The programme clearly came from the heart. Liszt’s later work opened and closed the evening and clearly his fellow countryman is high on this artist’s favourites. The remarkable half hour long movement, Sonata in B minor held to reflect Liszt’s spiritual journey throughout his life, contains the kind of disturbing drama of a life immersed in music. From deep base arpeggios to slight but thoughtful single note reflections, this remains a surprisingly contemplative work. Or are the extremes of mood an allegory for good and evil as suggested in Daniel’s notes? Look no further for such a dichotomy than the stained-glass figures above the stage, preserved ( why? Listed possibly?) in the new building. Paired in the central arch are two massive figures which represent the best – and worst – of the spirit of 17th century Puritanism. John Milton on the right, many hold as England’s greatest poet, author of the epic Paradise Lost, the delicate sensitive thinker known in his College days as The Lady of Christ’s. Next to him Oliver Cromwell, the relentless military leader who latest historians now claim was responsible for the death and immiseration of hundreds of thousands of Irish he considered infidels.
Yet the concert was framed around the Schumanns, Robert the brilliant composer who was afflicted by debilitating madness, despite his success throughout Europe. His Songs of Dawn alongside Variations on a theme by RS by Clara his composer and public pianist wife ‘are a snapshot of the final year of their disintegrating marriage, immediately before Robert’s suicide attempt when he threw himself into the Rhine and his admission to the insane asylum,’ writes Daniel in his notes. A tragic picture . The concert finished with even more terrifying tones La loche Sonne and Legend.no.2 St Francis walking on the waves’
After this tour de force of physical and emotionally strenuous play, Daniel almost wrung out with effort, gave as an encore Brahms No.3 ( if I recall it right).
A generous soothing, loving, end to a tumultuous evening.
