Saturday, February 23, 2019

Quand notre Wigmore Hall fait Boum!

Sometimes surprising things crop up when you're writing programme notes.


Catch the amazing Marc-André Hamelin on 10 March at the Wigmore Hall in a programme of...Schumann, Chopin, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Fauré and six transcriptions of Charles Trenet songs made by a mysterious piano-playing 'Mr Nobody' in the 1950s - an era in which playing popular music was so frowned upon that the pianist-transcriber elected not to reveal that his name was actually Alexis Weissenberg.

Hamelin heard the Mr Nobody recording and, not knowing if the arrangement had ever been written down, transcribed it all himself from the audio. He recorded it on a Hyperion CD called 'In a State of Jazz'.

Much later, Weissenberg's daughter sent him some scans of the original manuscript, but it didn't always match the recording. Now both versions have been published together.

You'll need to come to the Wigmore Hall on 10 March to read the rest and hear Hamelin in action. Meanwhile, enjoy a spot of Boum! above...

Bouking here.