Boys and staff were treated to an exceptional musical performance on Wednesday lunchtime, when two masters students from the Royal College of Music played an impressive Masters Platform Concert in the Recital Hall. Danish Cellist Safira Nielsen, accompanied by Daniel Adipradhana on the grand piano, chose a varied and complex repertoire for the recital.
Safira began in the Baroque era, unaccompanied, playing four movements from Bach’s Fifth Cello Suite. With Daniel joining her, she moved to the late Classical period, playing the first movement of Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata in C Minor. Safira explained that this piece was originally written for arpeggione, a near extinct six-stringed instrument with a huge range. Inevitably, this makes it a challenging piece for a four-stringed cello, but her performance was beautifully executed.
The final piece was Alfred Schnittke’s Cello Sonata, composed in 1978. Before she began, Safira gave the audience some context around this Russian composer of Jewish-German descent, whose music was viewed with suspicion by Soviet Union bureaucracy. The sonata was a fine display of his polystylism, with a deranged Viennese waltz emerging in the piano accompaniment at one point. Safira played with such intensity and emotion that the audience was taken along for the ride. The tension in the moments of silence before the applause was palpable, once the piece had reached its climactic and frenzied conclusion.
Head of Strings Bjorn Bantock has been teaching Safira at the Royal College of Music, as she prepares for her final Masters performance next month. Mr Bantock said, “This recital was a great opportunity for boys to see these students in performance just as they are poised to begin their careers as professional musicians.” We look forward to the next Masters Platform Concert next summer with anticipation!