John Lill

Ilkley Concert Club

The King’s Hall, Ilkley

At the end of the evening there was a standing ovation; that has never happened before in these concerts and they have been going since 1946! And it wasn’t as if the programme set out to be a crowd-pleaser, indeed I was told that John Lill was concerned that his programme might be too much on the heavy side.

He ended with Beethoven’s huge Hammerklavier sonata, a forty-five minute epic, having already played demanding music before the interval.

His platform manner is undemonstrative, nothing flash or attention-seeking. But when those amazing fingers touch the keys something quite remarkable happens.

Asked to name the great pianists of the age, many would list those star artists assiduously promoted by the major record companies; but make no mistake, John Lill is their equal as this concert amply demonstrated.

He began with Mozart’s Sonata K332. In the context of this programme it was right to give it a relatively restrained classical reading, yet there was no lack of character in the approach and the finale, very quick as Mozart asks, had wonderful clarity. The sound world of Brahms’ Variations on a Theme of Handel is very different, rich and weighty and John Lill unleashed all the power at his command in striking contrast to what we’d just heard. There are 25 short variations and in less skilled hands the work can seem bitty, but not on this occasion, such was the way the performance was structured, each variation skillfully linked to its neighbour.

The final fugue was magnificently played, the hall’s piano responding heroically to the demands made on it. And so to the Hammerklavier. No need to pick over the niceties of the performance; as someone said afterwards ‘at times it was as if Beethoven himself was playing'.

The audience was held spellbound through the slow movement’s 20 minute duration, I’ve rarely experienced such stillness and concentration in a concert hall. What a privilege and a joy for us to be there.

Geoffrey Kinder