Page 495 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

sweet serenity. This served as a period of calm before the storm; an intensely
emotional and deeply expressive performance of Mozart’s dark Fantasie No.3
in the dramatic key of D minor K.397. Haydn’s B minor Sonata was deftly
executed, sandwiched between a dazzling account of Mozart’s delicately
wrought Rondo in D K.485, and a joyous realisation of Mozart’s ebullient Kleine
Gigue, K.574. The first half concluded with more Mozart; a penetrating
interpretation of the three-movement Sonata facile in C (K.545), which
conveyed, in turn, steely precision, heart-rending tenderness and child-like
innocence.

The second part of the evening, quipped Ólafsson, ‘would take a turn for the

worse’. Apart from the rippling stillness of the Larghetto from Galuppi’s Sonata
No.34 in C, the rest of the programme was dominated by ever more complex
works written by Mozart in the last ten years of his life, including three
brooding adagios, beginning with the pianist’s adaptation of the Adagio from
the String Quintet in G minor, K.516. Here Ólafsson conjured from his piano, a
muted, translucent, and silky timbre. In vivid contrast and closer in texture and
intensity to late Beethoven came Sonata No.14 in C minor K.457 with its urgent
and dramatic Molto allegro first movement, poignant Adagio, and
introspective Allegro assai finale, each phrase lustrous and perfectly crafted.
The evening ended -well almost – on a deeply reverential note, with Liszt’s
serenely beautiful transcription of Ave Verum Corpus. As Mozart said, ‘The
music is not the notes, but the silence in between.’
‘After Ave Verum, it’s hard to play an encore’ said Ólafsson, before dedicating
one to the memory of the great Rumanian concert pianist Radu Lupu who died
in April of this year. He chose neither Mozart nor one of his contemporaries, but
Bartók and a wistful account of his Three Hungarian Dances. These were played
with uncommon lightness of touch, and provided a phenomenal, dare one say
awe-inspiring conclusion to a mesmerizing evening.

Chris Sallon