the technically brilliant Simon Callaghan
[translated extract]
What a miraculous surprise when Nicolas Stavy showed that a concert can begin with an étude by Hélène de Montgeroult (1764 to 1836), author of a three-volume piano textbook, just as poetically and more surprisingly than with a prelude by Chopin. No less enchanting are the "Six Romances sans paroles" by Cécile Chaminade (1857 to 1944), who has since been discovered as a song composer, with which the technically brilliant Simon Callaghan began his concert before he showed that the rhythmically intricate first sonata by Cyril Scott (1879 to 1970) and the fourth sonata by Arnold Bax (1883 to 1953) with its furioso finale could take the place that is given to Sergei Prokofiev, for example.