He also seems a bit dazed by it: a full room that erupts in cheers before he has even touched a key. And this was his solo debut in the Great Hall of the Concertgebouw. But it is no small feat that Nikola Meeuwsen has accomplished this year.
He was the first Dutchman ever to win the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels – a world-class achievement. Since his victory, the whole world has been attracted to him, from Cyprus to Seoul.
But last week he was back in his own country for a double home match: two concerts in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
He certainly did not bring open doors for his solo debut in the Great Hall. The pushy one, almost never played Second piano sonata by Dmitri Shostakovich, for example. Or the Variations seriouses by Felix Mendelssohn.
He always balanced his grip on the musical architecture with lilting and extremely bounded playing. For Meeuwsen, Legato is a force of nature, not a technical trick to produce a sound. Take Mendelssohn’s variation number fourteen: Meeuwsen fused it into a religious hymn, leaning almost physically on the harmonies.
After a strongly played Mozart sonata and the impressive Fantasy by Robert Schumann, Meeuwsen was at his best in the encore, an intermezzo by Johannes Brahms: lilting, thoughtful, his left hand always moving just separately from his right. It’s wonderful how he linked phrases together. The room went crazy.
Meeuwsen certainly did not bring any open doors with him for his solo debut in the Main Hall.
Photo Simon van Boxtel
Satin strings
Hardly recovered from the euphoria, Meeuwsen must have entered the rehearsals with the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra. Sunday morning a week later Mozart’s Ninth Piano Concerto in the pipeline. He can dream the piece: he played it at his semi-final in Brussels. It was also this piece that he enjoyed the most during the entire competition, he recently said NRC.
And he is clearly enjoying himself this morning too. Not the kind of enjoyment where you sit back and forth behind the grand piano with a cheerful smile. No, it’s all about playfully seeking out dialogue with the orchestra. A tilted eye towards the oboists, a turn of his head towards the low strings during a dramatic start. It is rewarded with a wonderfully satin string sound and pregnant winds.
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In Mozart’s solo cadence in the first movement, Meeuwsen secretly weaves in an aria from the opera Le nozze di Figaro, ‘Voi che sapete’. Nice and logical: it is almost the same theme, but in mirror image.
You can hear it Ninth is one of Meeuwsen’s favorite piano concertos. He lets himself be carried away and sometimes almost dreams away in the notes. This works better in the emotional second part than in the fast third, where the momentum sometimes drops due to the many tempo fluctuations. Dreamily drawn out at one moment, only to rush off again in a rapidly played rondo theme. But you have to hand it to him, even in those turbo notes he makes beautiful wavy lines.
Meeuwsen receives his ovation modestly, but getting a sold-out Concertgebouw in the seats twice within one week can safely be called a triumph.
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