EIF: Elisabeth Leonskaja

A Titan of the keyboard in Edinburgh 

“Legendary Soviet pianist and Titan of the keyboard “was the description of Elisabeth Leonskaja that the Festival gave to her in their programme notes. I’m not sure that this fine pianist would thank them for that description, since she has lived in Vienna since 1978 and in a recent interview says she sees herself more of an Austrian these days. Still as she was born in Tbilisi Georgia to Russian parents, and educated at the Moscow Conservatoire, she was a product of the Soviet musical system which did produce great Russian pianists like Svyatoslav Richter, with whom she played concerts and who was an early influence on her. Now 75 years old she is one of the most respected pianists in the world, and in today’s concert she showed that she was still “a Titan of the keyboard”. 

It was a nice sunny day in the Old Quad tent with little wind to disturb our concentration as Leonskaja took to the stage in a long white dress but sensibly with a long black cardigan to keep her warm. She began with a delightful Schubert Allegretto, one of three short works that he wrote 6 months before his death in 1828 but not published until 40 years later by Brahms, the main composer of this concert. This was a perfect opening work for a concert, beginning with a jolly waltz-like tune with then some introspective periods before a final flourish. It showed that she was still on top of her form. She then took on a very different work, Schoenberg’s ‘Six Little Piano Pieces’, composed in 1911. Schoenberg was definitely in his “plinky plonky” period, indeed he said the work abandons the notion of keys, and for me also has an absence of melody. Fortunately, the work only lasts five minutes and we quickly forgot it when we were swept into the final work of the concert Brahms Sonata in F minor Op 5. Written in 1853 when Brahms was only 20 years old this is an amazing almost symphonic work which shows us some themes for his later symphonies. Leonskaja again a “Titan of the piano” as she went through the five movements of the work, finishing with a flourish which brought a very warm response from the big audience in the Old Quad. They demanded an encore and she rewarded us with a sparkling performance of a fairly modern work showing us she was very much still in her prime as a pianist. You can hear the concert on Radio 3 on Friday at 1pm. Don’t miss it.