Adelaide Town Hall. 30 Oct
James Rhodes is not your usual concert pianist. He wears jeans, trendy sneakers, a slim fit V-necked sweater over a white T-shirt (which probably has a smart arse slogan printed on it!), and the elastic waist of his boxers occasionally pokes annoyingly (or is that fashionably?) over the top of his jeans. He wears his hair long and shaggy, his chic designer stubble face hides behind thick black rimmed glasses – except when he plays – and he speaks in an ever so nice but not too posh English accent. He looks like a geek, but he plays classical piano repertoire with razor sharp insight and refreshingly overt passion. The concert he performed in the Adelaide Town Hall is one of the most remarkable I have ever been to.
James Rhodes is atypical, and so are his concerts. Rather than a printed program replete with musical analysis and commentary written decades ago by crusty dons – his words (almost), not mine – Rhodes addresses the audience directly from the stage and shares his views about the music and the lives of the composers who wrote it. This is potentially risky stuff. It could all come across as being theatrical, forced and sentimental, but it doesn’t. What he says comes from the heart and it is underpinned by deep understanding. Rhodes gives the audience a teasing glimpse into what motivates him to play, and he does it with disarming and occasionally bawdy, but always infectious, humour. And the audience loved it. He connects. And then he plays, and the roller coaster begins.
Rhodes started with Bach’s transcription of the adagio from Marcello’s D minor oboe concerto. He leaned over the keyboard and looked intently at each individual key as he coaxed the Steinway to yield the hauntingly beautiful melodies of this sublime piece. Then followed a highly individual interpretation of Beethoven’s beautiful opus 53 – the Waldstein piano sonata. Initially I was in heated disagreement with his phrasing and dynamics – it was so very different to every other performance and recording I had heard – but he won me over and I accepted it for what it was, a deeply personal exploration of what was an unusual composition in its day. (I ache to hear what he might do with the monumental and highly idiosyncratic Sonata No.32 which, I understand he is intending to record.) The first half of the program finished with Moskowski’s Etude in F, which he mischievously began with a false start comprising a few bars from the Freddy Mercury/Queen anthem Bohemian Rhapsody, just to keep the audience on its toes!
The second half began with Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C sharp minor, and it was played with precision, clarity, strength and deep feeling. This was followed by another transcription – the second movement from Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Pointing to an empty stage eerily lit by only three spotlights, and grinning like a naughty adolescent in the first flushes of sexual awakening, Rhodes quipped that the budget could extend to either a hooker backstage or an orchestra. The highlight of the second half of the program was the Busoni transcription of Bach’s Charconne in D minor. Rhodes introduced it as Bach’s homage to his dearly beloved first wife, although this theory is contested. But, why let that get in the way of a good story. True or not, Rhodes treated the piece with respect and drew out its inner beauty, and the audience let the last note slip gracefully into the evening before erupting in enthusiastic applause.
As if we were not already satisfied, Rhodes then offered two encores. The first was another transcription, this time by Liszt of Schumann’s evocative and beautiful song ‘Dedication’. The second was Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. Rhodes introduced it as a wrist breaker and then proceeded to dazzle us with an accurate performance played at break neck speed with phenomenal forearm strength tossing off rapid ff and fff staccato as if it was the easiest thing in the world.
James Rhodes is an entertainer, and a pianist of some stature. I cannot wait for his next visit to Australia, and nor should you.
Kym Clayton
James Rhodes performs Beethoven's Piano Sonata in E Flat, Op31 No3
