Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall review – Classical consolations | reviews, news & interviews
Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall review – Classical consolations
Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall review – Classical consolations
Haydn and Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, putting life in perspective
by Peter QuantrillThursday, 10 December 2020
Paul Lewis at Wigmore HallWigmore Hall f
The key of C minor threw a dark shadow over music long before it became the tonality for Beethoven to express the struggle of one against many in the Fifth Symphony and the Third Piano Concerto.
The key of C minor threw a dark shadow over music long before it became the tonality for Beethoven to express the struggle of one against many in the Fifth Symphony and the Third Piano Concerto. Mozart was a feted teenager and Beethoven a babe in arms when Haydn wrote his C minor Piano Sonata in 1771, 60 years before Schumann began to make his own inner turmoil into music in the wake of Beethoven. Yet through silence as much as sound, Paul Lewis made something personal and almost confessional from the Sonata’s slow introduction, placing the full tonal weight of the Wigmore’s Steinway at the service of music probably conceived for the slender resources of a clavichord.