Liebesträume was the calm before the storm that was the Mephisto, and the concert had truly become a celebration of the majesty of the romantic piano. The same was true of the delightfully playful La Campanella. 5 – the so called ‘black keys’ Etude – was played with strength, precision and pace, and the left hand never overpowered the melody and tintinnabulation in the right. His program choices had immediate appeal to the audience – they were more familiar, and were showy – very fitting for a Fringe event! The Chopin Etude Op. Heng’s performance was studied and impressive. For an encore she played Liszt’s glorious paraphrase of the Act 3 quartet in Verdi's Rigoletto, and allowed the four voices to come through clearly and distinctly despite some minor problems with the high rate of octave repetitions. Of course, here I am writing this and Un Sospiro is. While I love the exercises developed by Liszt, I do not love them as individual pieces of great music that I consider the Chopin etudes to be. 2 and excelled in the slower and more ruminative sections of all three of the Scherzos where she was in full control of the tempo and brought out the lightness needed in the right hand. The why is simply because I love each and every note in the opus 10 and just about every single note of the remaining 15. She attacked the opening of the popular Scherzo No. Grynchuk began the recital with the Scherzos.

They were the piano ‘greats’ of their day and the relevance and enjoyability of their oeuvre persists and is timeless. Liszt is bravura, showmanship, visceral, and often deeply spiritual, while Chopin is more poetic, intricately constructed, melodic and melancholic. Their music is very different-some say Chopin’s is superior- but they admired each other very much. Liszt and Chopin were contemporaries of each other – born one year apart. Their program exclusively featured the music of Chopin and Liszt, including three of Chopin’s Scherzos, a Mazurka and two Etudes, and three of Liszt’s shorter pieces -Valse Oubliée, La Campanella, and Liebesträume- and his powerful Mephisto Waltz No.1.

Young and accomplished prize winning Adelaide pianists Marianna Grynchuk and Jonathan Heng curiously bill their Fringe performance as a “celebration recital”.

Chopin scherzo 2 vs liszt la campanella