Libor Novacek » Concert Reviews

Libor’s Brahms is legendary

Czechkoncert — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 18:08:26 +0000

Libor’s Brahms is legendary

Last Saturday Music Nairn had the pleasure of welcoming back Libor Nováček for his second performance at the Community Centre. He bravely chose to start with Janáček’s challenging masterpiece „On the Overgrown Path“, a work whose fleeting glimpses of the composer’s pain following the death of his daughter, cast in his curious musical language, delighted some members of the audience and puzzled others. It is often said that the poignancy of this work can really be brought off convincingly only by a Czech, and Libor certainly lived up to his nationality. His at times generous pedaling emphasized the impressionist qualities of this work, without compromising the more percussive folk-song inspired elements. Libor chose to play with the score not, he explained, because he did not know the notes, but because the beauty of their physical shape on the page inspired him to new thoughts at each performance – a novel but understandable position. He somehow managed to play as if he were alone, and yet to engross the audience in this introspective work.

Unfortunately the performance was marred by the sound of Nairn revelers who apparently do not know the most famous date in the history of the United Kingdom – or perhaps they choose also to celebrate Hogmanay a week early when it suits them! At any rate, Libor certainly produced fireworks of his own (now without interruption) for Beethoven‘s first virtuoso piano work, his Sonata in C major (Op 2 No 3). This is perhaps Beethoven’s first sonata where he writes as himself, rather than Haydn, with all his power, wit and depth. Whilst Libor had exploited the sonority of the Steinway to the full in the Janáček, the powerful bass at times threatened the brilliance of the treble, but his ability to follow Beethoven’s sudden mood changes certainly produced an exciting performance.

Nováček ended his programme with another introspective work, Brahms Op 116 Phantasien, also written after bereavement. Again, his thoughtful love of this particular piano resulted in a beautiful and moving performance of another unusually modern-sounding work for its time: Libor’s Brahms is legendary. And after such an almost morbid opening and end to a perfect recital, we were delighted with a charming „musical box“ by Litolff, whose gradual unwinding to a standstill elicited an obvious chuckle from the enthralled audience.

29.10.2011 by PZM

Novacek vuelve a brillar en Orpesa junto al Carducci

Czechkoncert — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 20:58:39 +0000

El brillante pianista deleita con su clase al animado público del clásico Orfim

Libor Novacek volvió envuelto de aplausos a la plaza de la Iglesia de Orpesa, esta vez, muy bien acompañado. El joven cuarteto Carducci, uno de los grupos de cámara jóvenes más aclamados del Reino Unido, envolvió de los mejores sonidos de cuerda al genio checoslovaco, que ya el martes deleitó Orpesa del Mar.

Orpesa del Mar se envolvió con un programa lleno de guiños a los más grandes. El Cuarteto en si bemol (M. H III: 78, Op.76 nº4 Amanecer), de Haydn; el Quartettsatz para cuarteto de cuerda en do menor (D. 703), de Schubert; y el Quinteto con piano en la mayor (Op. 81), de A. Dvorák, ilusionó los oídos del respetable, impresionado, otra vez, con la humildad de Libor Novacek.

EL PERIÓDICO MEDITERRÁNEO

Notas de emoción de Novacek en el Orfim

Czechkoncert — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 20:47:17 +0000

El enorme pianista checo llenó la plaza de la Iglesia de Orpesa en la primera jornada del festival internacionál

'La Sonata en Do Mayor' (Hob. XVI. 50), de J. Haydn; 'las Siete fantasías' (Op. 116 Intervalo), de J. Brahms; los 'Preludios' (Vol. II -selección-), de C. Debussy; y la 'Sonata en Si Menor', de F. Liszt, maravillaron al respetable que colapsó la plaza frente al escenario de Orpesa y alguna de las calles adyacentes.

Novacek demostró que es un artista en todos los sentidos y sorprendió al público dirigiéndose a ellos en un buen castellano. Aunque algo tímido, Libor pudo transmitir sus sentimientos sobre sus temas, los que luego interpretó con maestría y precisión. El checo llenó el ambiente de Orpesa de buena música clásica y inauguró un Orfim que en la presente edición se ha mejorado exponencialmente.

El artista internacional actuará otra vez mañana junto al Cuarteto Carducci, a los que acompañará con su particular piano.

EL PERIÓDICO MEDITERRÁNEO

Atemberaubender Klavierabend

Czechkoncert — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:54:22 +0000

Atemberaubender Klavierabend

Libor Novacek begeisterte in der Reihe „Aqua Piano“ das Publikum

Diesmal setzte Libor Novacek mit seinem Programm „Brahms versus Liszt“ ein neues Glanzlicht in der Reihe.

Janacek entdeckte in der Wortmelodik Fenster, die in die Menschliche Seele führen. Töne und Akkorde waren für ihn belebte Wesen. Diesen Zusamenhängen war Libor Novacek so genau auf der Spur, als ob er den Komponisten bei seinen Expeditionen in der Sprachausdruck der menschlichen Seele belauscht hätte.

Brahms „7 Fantasien“ Op. 116 interpretierte Novacek mit unglaublicher Präzision. Einzelne Passagen des Vortrages nach der technischen Fertigkeit zu beurteilen wäre auf Grund der Perfektion verwegen.

Diese Einsätzige außerst anspruchsvolle dreißigminütige Werk (F. Liszt : Sonate h-Moll) interpretierte Novacek in einer Weise, dass den Zuhörern schier der Atem stockte.

Adolf Zimmerman

Passauer Neue Presse , 20. 07. 2011

BBC Music Magazine – July 2011

Czechkoncert — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 21:04:57 +0000

**July 2011 issue of the BBC Music Magazine - Musical Destinations article**

Daniel Jaffé is writing about the piano festival in New Ross (P.52) and comments as follows:

In 2010 there were striking performances by the Chinese pianist Sa Chen and the Czech Libor Nováček (who gave a spine-tingling and in my experience unsurpassed performance of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.)

Read the article

***

Ve svém článku Daniel Jaffé píše na straně 52 o festivalu v irském New Ross a komentuje je slovy:

„ V roce 2010 se zde uskutečnila mimořádná vystoupení čínské pianistky Sa Chen a Čecha Libora Nováčka, který přednesl pro mne doposud nepřekonatelné provedení Mussorgského Obrázků z výstavy, ze kterého běhal mráz po zádech“.

Novacek and the Carduccis

Czechkoncert — Fri, 27 May 2011 08:13:43 +0000

Libor Novacek joined forces with the marvellous Carducci Quartet for a performance this afternoon of Dvorak’s Piano Quintet. It was a sensational performance full of nuance, insight and verve. Our dear old Bechstein, an elderly lady in her eighties, was handled with great sensitivity by the dashing Czech and the music rang out with passion and joy.

Concerts at Dillington are wonderful events and this one was one of the best. There was real chemistry on the stage and this was communicated to the audience. It was the first time the Carduccis had played the work and so there was something special going on. A sense of occasion and a realisation of musicians coming together and doing something that was far from routine and ordinary. After the performance, Libor Novacek said this was the first performance in which he had totally enjoyed the performance. Everything came together and the music was electrified. I think the audience agreed.

Wayne Bennett

Powerful programme – phenomenal execution

Czechkoncert — Wed, 18 May 2011 20:49:34 +0000

At the age of 13 Libor Novacek staged first time in Dahlbruch – now he celebrated a come-back in the Wilhelm Bush Theatre with Master Chamber Music Series

Powerful programme – phenomenal execution

by Knut Lohmann

Pianist Libor Novacek had prepared an extraordinarily powerful programme for his audience in Dahlburch where he performed 6^th time. Some faithful subscribers / devoted adherents remembered his first presentation on the stage of the Wilhelm Busch Theatre in 1993 when he was just 13 years old.

A powerful programme? This consists of a series of compositions rich in content with which the artist can give proof of his stylistic flexibility, his technical know-how and an inspiring musical creativity and with which the audience receive their money’s worth in the way of getting their desires for sonority, spiritual challenge and suspenseful entertainment – and perhaps a little bit of relaxing distraction – fulfilled.

All of these were offered by the now 32 years old artist.

Aesthetic delight

In the Sonata C mayor by Haydn (Opus XVI:50) he fascinated the audience by clear key stroke, rectilinear play, and now and then – when the musical situation permitted – by gestures which implied that he was himself surprised by the discordant sounds the composer forced him to impose onto the audience.

The 7 Fantasies – Capriccios and Intermezzi – designated by Brahms as Opus 116 which followed have a totally different character pretending to relate a story of despair and exasperation as well as elation and high spirits intermingled with a few moments of relaxation. Novacek’s excellence consisted in the ability not to burden the listener with the musical and mental heavyweight, but to enable him to enjoy the aesthetic pleasures of the presentation.

Ponderosity need not be a worry with the third piece “Pictures at an Exhibition“ by Mussorgsky – as the moment of tantalizing entertainment just filled the space instantaneously. Here the spectators had to take care in order not to entirely forget the composer and his intentions due to being fully absorbed by their admiration for the ingenious performance of the artist and for the enormous power of his (and the grand piano’s) near orchestral sound display.

When he looked up during the ”Ballet of the Chicks” to make sure that none of them had flown away in the medley, and when he (metaphorically speaking) brought his whole body into tension and verve for the impetus to the “big gate of Kiew“ in order to master the final exertion, this was obviously also a little bit of certainly permissible show business.

The music could not be excelled by words, Novacek commented the heavy applause, and satisfied the expectations of the audience for an encore by a delightful midget imitation of a music box.

****

Starkes Programm – phänomenal gespielt

Ästhetisches Vergnügen

Ein starkes Programm? Das ist eine Stückefolge von substanzvollen Werken, bei denen der Künstler seine stilistische Vielseitigkeit, sein technisches Können und eine einleuchtende Gestaltungsfähigkeit beweisen kann und wo das Publikum auf seine Kosten kommt: Das möchte Wohlklang, geistige Herausforderung und spannende Unterhaltung – und vielleich auch ein bisschen Entertainment.

Das alles hatte dieser inzwischen 32-jährige Künstler zu bieten. Bei der C-Dur-Sonate von Haydn faszinierte er durch seinen klaren Anschlag, die Geradelinigkeit seines Spiels.

Novacek Kunst: die klangliche und mentale Schwergewichtkeit für den Hörer nicht zur werden zu lassen, sondern ihm trotz aller Anstrengung die Freiheit zu vermitteln, den Vortrag dieser Werke (Brahms: Capriccio und Intermezzi Op. 116) auch als ästhetisches Vergnügen zu empfinden.

Darum musste er sich bei dem drittem Stück – Mussorgskys Bilder einer Ausstellung – nicht sorgen: So greifbar stand das Moment der spanenden Unterhaltung im Raum. Hier musste der Zuhörer auf sich selbst aufpassen, das er nicht voller Bewunderung für das dramaturgische Genie des Pianisten und für stupende Kraft seiner nahezu orchestralen Klangentfaltung über dem Spieler den Komponisten und seine Intentionen vergaß.

Westfälische Rundschau, 12. Mai 2011

Eine Sternstunde am Flügel

Dieser Klavierabend war geprägt von einer pianistischen Leistung auf höchstem Niveau: gut erkennen konte das Publikum, warum der erst 31 Jahre alte Künstler bereits mit großen Pianisten wie Claudio Arrau oder Wilhelm Kempff verglichen wird. Den Besuchern wird der Abend als großer musikalischer Eindruck in Erinnerungen bleiben, und der Gebrüder-Busch-Gesellschaft darf sich über den großen Erfolg ihrer Förderung freuen – entsprechend euphorisch war der Schlussapplaus.

Siegener Zeitung, 13. Mai 2011

Darlington Piano Society

Czechkoncert — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 14:00:18 +0000

Making his third visit at the invitation of Darlington Piano Society, Czech pianist Libor Novacek offered two “pictorial” works and a ground-breaking Haydn sonata.

He began with a piece by his fellow countryman, Leos Janacek: autobiographical musical snapshots from Book I of On An Overgrown Path, recalling events in the composer’s earlier life.

These remarkable pieces were traced with great sensitivity, particularly in A leaf blown in the wind, with its yearning for times past; brevity and playfulness in Come with me; sheer beauty of the church processional in The Virgin of Frydek; and the depth of emotion on the death of the composer’s daughter Olga in 1903, in the final trio of pieces in the cycle.

With Haydn’s Sonata in C, Hob XVI:50 came a brilliant display of good humour and wit, arising from the composer’s experiments in the newly-developed modern piano, performed with a nice blend of fun, robustness and sensitivity, enhanced by the pianist’s facial and body language.

This was also a feature of the musical perambulations round the Hartmann exhibition in St Petersburg of the 1870s, as each reaction to a painting was brought to life in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

The Old Castle was beautifully expressed, as was the image of the grinding wheels of the Ox Cart in Bydlo, the yakety-yak of women in Limoges and the visceral nastiness of Baba Yaga’s Hut on hen’s legs.

The final picture, The Great Gate at Kiev, sounded out with grandeur and power.

What to offer after all this as an encore? Novacek played a brief, quiet piece by an unnamed Polish composer that never strayed far from the top octaves of the piano – a musical box or clock perhaps?

Dave Robson

http://www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/leisure/arts/8863512.Libor_Novacek__Darlington_Arts_Centre/

Jeremy Nicholas reviews Libor Novacek’s recital

Czechkoncert — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:51:11 +0000

It says something for the discernment and dogged determination of rural East Anglians that they forsake the dubious pleasures of Strictly and The X Factor, venture out on a chilly night, wend their way to a discreet location at the end of a half mile track and attend a piano recital by a pianist of whom most of them had never heard.
Most of the full house would, I guess, be only too willing to repeat the exercise if future recitals are to be anything like that given by the young Czech pianist Libor Novacek last Saturday. Potton Hall, increasingly the recording location of choice for international pianists, doubles as a concert hall. It’s a relatively new venture: Novacek’s was only the 6th recital to be given there. With its superb new Steinway, warm, translucent acoustic and intimate atmosphere, the venue offers a welcome alternative to the brick-lined chill of the Snape Maltings (and you are offered complimentary mints as an aid to ward off coughs and splutters).
There are other nice touches like the pre-recital chat between the artist and Potton Hall’s supremo, former senior Radio 3 producer Jeremy Hayes. We not only hear something about the music about to be played but also get a flavour of the artist himself. It breaks down the invisible wall. We feel more connected. It’s no longer us and him. Before he played a note, Novacek had the audience in the palm of his hand.
Haydn’s Sonata in C (Hob.XV1/50) opened proceedings, its two outer movements wittily pointed and playfully quirky, the broad central Adagio given an almost elegiac quality. This airy, lightly-pedalled confection was in complete contrast to Janáček’s suite On An Overgrown Path. The fragmentary motifs derived from folksong and speech patterns that inform Janáček’s unique sound world are heard in ten short pieces inspired by childhood memories and anguish over the death of his daughter. Their stark and sombre character is not the kind to raise spirits but Novacek, playing from the score, produced a kaleidoscope of tonal colours in a performance of deep affection and thoughtful introspection.
After the interval he offered us the two Op.48 Nocturnes of Chopin. The first, surely one of the Polish composer’s most affecting works, more Ballade than Nocturne, was given an impassioned reading followed by its more subdued F sharp minor companion. Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition presents a formidable challenge to any pianist, not merely technically but in terms of characterisation and overall structure. This was as fine a performance as I can remember from the vicious duologue of Gnome to the imperious, awe-inspiring Great Gate of Kiev. Novacek was on fire and his daring, adrenalin-fuelled performance had the audience cheering. How to follow that with an encore? ‘I think I have shown I can play Grade Eight,’ Novacek announced, ‘but I haven’t shown that I can also play Grade One.’ His choice was the simplest of things, A Musical Box by Anon.. Charming – and a perfect end to a memorable evening. When Novacek returns to Potton Hall, as he surely will, his new East Anglian fan club will return in droves to hear him again.
Jeremy Nicholas

Source: Potton Hall

Potton Hall Facebook

Czechkoncert — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 22:08:38 +0000

Libor’s just performed to a jam packed concert hall – we ran out of programmes and seats – and it wasn’t surprising – he dazzled us. He’s agreed to talk to Jeremy on camera on Monday so keep your eyes peeled for the interview! Thanks Libor for treating us to something so special.

See more: Potton Hall Facebook

http://pottonhall.com/