Concert Reviews

Fränkische Landeszeitung | Wolfgang Zimmermann | 15 May 2007

Celebrated performance by David Theodor Schmidt at the Schwarzenberg Castle’s concert series
A great encounter
Young pianist shines with technical perfection and lucid interpretation

SCHEINFELD — David Theodor Schmidt, born in 1982 in Erlangen and currently living in London, has already received considerable praise from the press for his debut CD with works by Johann Sebastian Bach and César Franck; and indeed, also the audience of the Schwarzenberg Castle’s concert series had real pleasure with a great encounter on the past Saturday evening.

Similar to his first and his soon to be released second CD, the young pianist focused in this Scheinfeld concert on Bach and his influence on Franz Liszt, Feruccio Busoni, Dmitri Shostakovich, as well as on Bach transcriptions by artists of the Twentieth Century.
The first work on the programme was the Partita in E Minor, BWV 830. Schmidt does not make any effort with regard to historical performance practice. His Bach-playing is postmodern; it looks back on a long tradition and has – to some degree - absorbed the interpretations of the masters of the past. What distinguishes him from some Bach-performers of the prewar and early postwar period is his technical perfection. Apart from that he is by no means far from the German school of piano playing. Schmidt savours subtle vertical structures, notably in the harmonic progressions of the Toccata and the Sarabande. The colouristic richness of his playing is astounding; dynamic shadings seem to be far more important to him than the continuous linear differentiation of the material.
[...]
The two Busoni-versions of Bach’s chorales could not be more different from each other. Hess has dealt with the famous “Jesu bleibet meine Freude” in a contemplative manner while Kempffs version of a Sinfonia seems almost pompously written.
Before the intermission Schmidt played Shostakovich’s Prelude & Fugue in D Minor is played before the interval... it is the abstract contemplation of a long gone past; however, the composer wills himself to a victorious ending.
In the Liszt piece, sadness and brilliant playing make an unusual union. Rarely does Liszt’s characteristic, at times self-serving virtuosity pair with sadness and wild horror. It is only in the melody “What God does that is rightly done” that the piece turns to an optimistic apotheosis. While Schmidt consciously emphasizes the verticality in the Bach, he also stresses the manifold characters and the distinctions here. In any case, The piano is brought to its ultimate limits.

Enthusiastic applause evoked as an encore another playing of Bach à la Hess. “There is no way to go beyond this Liszt” was the master’s comment.

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