Naruhiko Kawaguchi plays 'Chopin & His Friends'
Naruhiko Kawaguchi is back in town! Na een langere tijd, inclusief de corona periode, in Japan verbleven te hebben, is Naruhiko Kawaguchi terug in Nederland. In Oktober neemt hij voor een Japans label een CD op, waarbij hij de Conrad Graf 1836 fortepiano uit de Geelvinck Coll. bespeelt. Op 17 september treedt hij op in de Geelvinck Salon in het Luther Museum op de Erard 1891 uit de nalatenschap van Romain d’Ansembourg. Museum Geelvinck heeft een bijzondere band met Naruhiko: in 2015 was hij een van de prijswinnaars van de Geelvinck Early Piano Competition en in 2019 won hij de ‘Geelvinck Chopin Award’ – opmaat voor het behalen later dat jaar van de 2de Prijs ex aequo van het zeer prestigieuze ‘International Chopin Concours on Period Pianos’ in Warshaw.
Programma: ‘Chopin and his Friends‘
Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856):
Arabeske op. 18
Kinderszenen op. 15
Felix Mendelssohn – Bartholdy (1809 – 1847):
Variations Serieuses, Op. 54
Charles – Valentin Alkan (1813 – 1888):
“Chant d’amour – Chant de mort” Etude op. 35 n. 10
Frédéric Chopin (1810 – 1849):
Scherzo n. 1 op. 20
Variations sur “Là ci darem la mano” op. 2
Franz Liszt (1811 – 1886):
Wiegenlied s.198
Kawaguchi licht zijn programma toe, in zijn eigen woorden
“Hats off, gentlemen, a genius.” This is the very famous phrase Schumann wrote in the 7 December 1831 edition of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. He was very impressed to know Chopin’s Variations sur “Là ci darem la mano” op. 2 and he praised Chopin with these words. This variation was composed when Chopin was 17 years old and this work tells Chopin’s genius enoughly.
Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Alkan & Lizt
But not only Chopin, his friends Schumann, Mendelssohn, Alkan and Liszt are also really amazing geniuses in the same generation. And except for Schumann, they were also active in Paris and you can imagine how they enjoyed French pianos such as Pleyel or Erard, Boisselot and more in Paris.Today’s piano in the Luther Museum is an Erard, built in 1891, at the end of the century, which saw earlier these glorious composers like Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Alkan and Liszt, but this beautiful Erard still tells us the light and shadow of the Romantic period.
Naruhiko Kawaguchi
Naruhiko Kawaguchi was born in Morioka and grew up in Yokohama, Japan. He is the prize winner of the 1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments, the International Competition Musica Antiqua Bruges 2016. He has performed fortepiano recitals in Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, “Chopin and his Europe” (Warsaw), Nohant Festival Chopin, Monteverdi Festival (Cremona), Goldberg Festival Gdańsk, Wunderkammer Trieste etc.. He has played concerto with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, {oh!} Orkiestra Historyczna. He is also active in ensemble playing with singers and various instrumentalists. In 2016, he premiered the second edition of ” Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano” by F. Poulenc with Saxton Rose (bassoon), and Nicholas Daniel (oboe) in U.S.A..He holds a Bachelor’s degree in musicology from the Tokyo University of the Arts as well as a Master’s degree in Early Music from the same university. And he holds a Master’s degree in Early Music from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where he graduated in 2017 with “cum laude”. He has studied fortepiano with Kikuko Ogura and Richard Egarr, clavichord with Menno van Delft.
