Freddy Kempf (piano)

Transcendental Studies - Liszt

The virtuoso study as concert piece is a form of display at the very heart of 19th century musical romanticism. And the marriage of athleticism and musicianship in usually compact and sharply-focused packages still exercises and thrills performers and audiences alike.

Liszt's 12 Transcendental Studies are among the peaks of this form of endeavour on the piano, yet they are by no means the most popular of the works he chose to label as studies. Their core is rather too difficult to penetrate for that, and the barriers are as much musical as technical. Or, rather, the rate at which musical yield increases in response to technical mastery is tilted so steeply against the performer that only the most doggedly tenacious of players are likely to reap a really substantial reward.

The Transcendental Studies usually turn up in concert programmes either singly or in small groups. It's a real measure of the daring of young British pianist Freddy Kempf, a player still in his early 20s, that he chose to present the entire set at a single sitting for his BBC Radio 3 recital at the BBC Waterfront Hall Studio in Belfast on Sunday afternoon.

From his headlong rush at the opening Preludio, it was clear that he had fire in his belly and nervous energy to burn, too, in his fingertips. If anything, the nature of his assault suggested a need for some sort of circumspection, a taming of his clearly racing pulse. Even though the wild galloping of his Mazeppa may have been attuned to the subject matter, there was evidence of a lack of musicianly control, a striving and straining after effects which didn't quite come off.

Bit by bit, the playing settled, although it wasn't until the ninth of the set, the inward Ricordanza, that the requisite poise finally materialised, every note falling into place within the desired larger shape, the intimacy of mood and character beautifully captured. And Kempf's skills with delicate colours and shapes were again evident in the penultimate Harmonies du soir.

Even in the later stages of the concert, the more agitated studies still lacked that sense of controlled mastery that's essential in this music even to the success of an apparently reckless-seeming approach. I couldn't help but think of a remark that Schumann penned in relation to some of Liszt's studies: "To be sure, very few will be able to master them; perhaps only four or five in the world." In spite of a century and a half of development in pianists' technique, when the fullest musical mastery is what's in question, Schumann's stricture probably still holds good today.