Last night saw a wonderful recital from Frederic Bager, who was last year’s winner of the Moray Firth Piano Competition.We offer the winner a concert every year, and it has been super to meet these very talented young musicians.Frederic is only 19, but has obviously a very bright future.He is a piano finalist in this year’s BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, which will be screened on BBC4 on 30 April.
He arrived at Dalcross from Lausanne in Switzerland accompanied by his charming grandparents, and next day his father joined them.He seemed very relaxed about the concert, and did not find it as daunting s the competitions he has recently participated in.
He started the concert with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E flat Major – better known as The Hunt, and which he took at a cracking pace, barely drawing breath between the movements.He then played Rachmaninoff, Janacek and Messiaen which gave ample scope for his virtuosity, and the last programmed work was the Chopin Scherzo No 4 in E Flat Major (what is it about that key?) which was a masterpiece.
After length applause when I thought that perhaps he didn’t realise we expected an encore, he sat down and thundered through a fiendishly difficult Scriabin etude which just about brought the house down.
A charmingly modest young man with such talent.After the concert he and his family repaired to the home of their hosts, Alfie and Joan Gamblin to enjoy some of the (liquid) produce of the area, and all we await is news of how long they are marooned here before the volcanic ash allows them to return to Europe
