John Lill, 10th October, Plaza Centre, Southend.
I've been to a couple of Lill's concerts before, one of them in the Festival Hall in the 1970s, shortly after he won the Moscow International Tchaikowsky Competition. We're going to hear a programme consisting of Mozart, Shumann, Brahms & Beethoven.
A splendid evening, as I knew it would be, involving the best British pianist of his generation. I have to admire the memorising faculties of someone like Lill. He must have played for a total in excess of 90 minutes, all without a score, of course. Over his career he must have memorised thousands of minutes of music and it's impressive that a septuagenarian still had the dexterity to play such intricate stuff. By comparison, Brendel carried on performing until he was 77.
The first piece was one of Mozart's F-major sonatas, K 332. I was surprised in the first movement, when he got to bar 80, and its subsequent equivalents, that he played G natural in the bass line. I have always played G sharp. I checked when I got home and my score (Schirmer edition) does indeed show a G sharp. However, a delve around the internet show other editions with G natural. I would imagine that Mozart would have done both at different times, but I have to say I prefer the sharpened bass note.
I didn't know the Schumann or a Prokofiev toccata, which was a very thrilling, rhythmic work. The second half consisted of 3 intermezzi by Brahms and the Waldstein sonata to finish off. That really is a monstrous work and is definitely Beethoven in the "you can't get too much of a good thing" mode. I have tried murdering the first two movements on several occasions but have always got fed up before I got to the last, so I didn't know it so well. It's technically far too difficult for a klutz like me though.
