UYMP University of York Music Press

“…a programme so perfectly shaped” - fabulous review of Danny Driver Wigmore concert which featured Simaku's ‘Catena IV’world premiere

11 March 2025

Described by the reviewer as ‘pure pleasure’, a wonderful review of Danny Driver's early January concert at the Wigmore Hall has just been published by Gramophone, in their "Spring 2025: Live concert reviews’’.  As a ‘centrepiece’, ‘ideally placed in this recital’, the concert included the world premiere of Catena IV,  a substantial work for piano by Thomas Simaku.  The reviewer writes: ‘Beginning with two Chopin Nocturnes, he went on to play Ligeti’s provocative Musica ricercata as a series of highly atmospheric impressions, suggesting an exhilarating journey of exploration.

‘And for his centrepiece he gave the world premiere of a work by Thomas Simaku entitled Catena IV, ideally placed in this recital in that its fourth section is a homage to Chopin (built on the exact notes of the start of Chopin’s First Ballade), its fifth section a homage to Ligeti and its eighth section bears the subtitle ‘Ligeti Meets Chopin’. It all felt like an improvisation, sometimes monosyllabic, sometimes garrulous and sometimes with crystalline high notes that contrasted with manually plucked strings in the bass.

'Driver rounded things off with a sequence of pieces by Chopin and Fauré that came from the heart. There was no encore – and why should there have been one, with a programme so perfectly shaped?'

The review can be read in full here.

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