ReviewsGate, 18th November 2024
Solo recital at Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, 17th November 2024

5*****

Leon McCawley was the second recitalist this season, with an instinctive grasp of the sort of programme which works in this context. His programme certainly fitted the bill.  And it had all those ingredients to which audiences are most susceptible on Sunday mornings, including delightfully succinct (but informative) chats before each piece.

It was a good idea to start with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 2  as it reflects the young composer at his wittiest. Leon McCawley obviously shares Beethoven’s musical sense of humour and has both the technique and timing to make this mischievous music really tell. He was equally good when the music calls for a very different approach.  The slow movement was noble and full of high seriousness.  The scherzo was charming and the finale witty, graceful and distinguished by carefully calculated dynamic contrasts and precise ornamentation.

Next came one of Rachmaninov’s Etudes-tableaux (Study-pictures). Leon McCawley managed all the music’s fierce technical demands with apparent nonchalance and injected it with a vivid sense of drama and emotional intensity.

The final two works on his programme could hardly have brought a greater contrast: the monumental arrangement by Franz Liszt of Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A minor for Organ (in which Bach’s complex musical architecture emerged with breath-taking clarity) and finally Mendelssohn’s Rondo Capriccioso, Op 14, a piece which fuses a lushly romantic opening with the composer’s trademark fairyland style, with lots of delicate dancing and lighter-than-air musical acrobatics.

As an encore Leon McCawley played more Rachmaninov: the sadly lyrical Prelude in G, Op 32 No 5.  It brought to an end a recital whose programming was as thoughtful as its execution was brilliant.
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El Norte (Monterrey, Mexico), October 3rd 2023
Solo recital for 27th Festival Internacional de Piano Sala Beethoven, Monterrey, October 2nd 2023

Leon McCawley displayed to the audience that attended the Auditorio San Pedro not only his immaculateness and level- headedness in the interpretation of classical repertoire (which included the Sonata No. 38 in F major of Haydn) but also an elegance and virtuosity very much in tune with the quality of performances to which this festival has accustomed us.

The recital began precisely with Haydn’s work in which the pianist displayed clean, thoughtful articulation and phrasing, with rhythmic clarity. Later, he performed Two Nocturnes Op. 55 by Chopin. The deeply emotional interpretation of these melancholic pages drew ‘’bravos’’ from the public. McCawley continued with Beethoven’s Sonata No. 26 in E flat major, known as “Les Adieux” where he gave a measured, reflective, technically impeccable reading, capturing the author’s emotional chiaroscuro in his touch.

The second part of the recital consisted of Two Rhapsodies Op. 79 by Johannes Brahms, in which the pianist overcame the technical challenges, and to conclude, Faschingsschwank aus Wien (Carnival Jest from Vienna) by Robert Schumann. Structured in five contrasting movements, the work allowed for a virtuoso and dynamic display by this master pianist from the Royal College of Music in London. The audience gave him a standing ovation.

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CharlesHutchPress, October 24th 2022
Solo recital at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, York, October 12th 2022

Athletes and performers alike talk about being “in the zone”. Leon McCawley found it here. He played the Schubert like a man possessed, not running amok, quite the opposite. The audience sensed it early on and kept incredibly quiet, even between movements. No-one wanted to break the extraordinary spell he generated.

Although Schubert’s multiple key-changes can easily disrupt the flow, they were not allowed to here, seeming perfectly and smoothly logical. This slackened not a whit in the Andante, which was deeply thoughtful and ended with the same serenity we had heard earlier.

The scherzo was fiery but light, with crisp inner voices. Gravity returned in the trio but evaporated with the scherzo’s return and peaceful conclusion. The finale was inevitably more extrovert, and even briefly stormy, but the scale was always intimate, as if secrets were being shared rather than trumpeted around the hall.

By now McCawley had the audience in the palm of his hand and could have got away with almost anything. But he kept faith with our intelligence and resisted the temptation to over-explain. It was possible to believe that this was exactly how Schubert intended it to be. Certainly it was a performance never to be forgotten.