James Rhodes – Etude for Left Hand

by Tim Topham in Performance and Recitals on October 28, 2011. 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of watching English pianist James Rhodes perform at the Melbourne Recital Centre. With a very good publicist, I’m sure just about everyone in Melbourne would have heard about him and the full-house attendance was impressive.

Join the the preeminent professional development, learning and networking community for instrumental music teachers.

Plans & Pricing

His program was varied and delivered competently, although his playing was nothing outstanding; but that wasn’t the aim of his recital. He mentioned on a number of occasions during interviews before his performance that he is NOT the best pianist in the world and he never claimed that these would be the best performances in history. What he aimed for was a performance that might open up ‘classical’ music to people who had never heard it before or believed they didn’t understand it. At this, he excelled. The explanations he gave between pieces were heartfelt, interesting and often very funny and gave us a much better understanding of each composer and why James had chosen to perform it.

But the real highlight for me out of the whole night was his fourth and last encore. I’d never heard the piece before and was totally blown away! It was “Etude Pour La Main Gauche” Op. 36 by Felix Blumenfeld, a composer I hadn’t even hear of before! It’s a beautiful and tremendously difficult work for left hand alone. Have a look at the YouTube clip below of him playing this piece, but I recommend just listening first – you would swear he was using both hands, if not another player as well. It’s really unbelievable what can be done with one hand alone!

Now back to my left hand scales…!

Integrated Music Teaching Piano and Guitar

by Tim Topham

Much as been said about 22-year-old Uzbekistan pianist Behzod Abduraimov since he came to prominence after winning grand prize at the 2009 London International Piano Competition, and so it was with great anticipation that I went to his recital at the Recital Centre on Tuesday 27 March, 2012. One thing was instantly clear: this guy ... James Rhodes – Etude for Left Hand

by Tim Jorge

Get the insights to improve your performance confidence!

by Tim Topham

In an attempt to keep my teaching current and to learn from what the masters did in the past and consider how this affects modern playing and teaching, I am forever reading articles and books by noted pianists and teachers. If there is one thing that they all have in common, right back to the ... James Rhodes – Etude for Left Hand

by Tim Topham

Since being introduced to the music of Friedrich Gulda at the APPC conference in July by Jovanni de Pedro, I stumbled upon another fantastic and, it seems, undervalued crossover jazz/classical composer: Nikolai Kapustin. Kapustin has been active as a composer since the late 1950s though he has only become known in the West during the ... James Rhodes – Etude for Left Hand

by Tim Topham

If you want to be really, really good at something, you have to be addicted to it. You need to be in a state where you are thinking about it all the time, even when you’re not doing it. You talk about it, you have friends that do it, you dream about it. Imagine having ... James Rhodes – Etude for Left Hand

by Tim Topham

Have you ever thought about playing for weddings? Becoming a wedding pianist can be a great complementary income for piano teachers and a fantastic way to perform and keep up your playing chops as well as explore new music. Liz Craig has combined teaching with being a wedding pianist with great success and it now ... CPTP166: From piano teacher to wedding pianist with Liz Craig

About the author

Tim Topham

Tim Topham is the founder and director of TopMusic. Tim hosts the popular TopCast show, blogs regularly at dev.topmusic.co and speaks at local and international conferences on topics such as pedagogy, business, marketing and entrepreneurship. Tim has been featured in American Music Teacher, The Piano Teacher Magazine, California Music Teacher and EPTA Piano Professional. Tim holds an MBA in Educational Leadership, BMus, DipEd and AMusA.

1 Comment

Cross Eyed Pianist says:

10/28/2011 at 6:43 pm

Interesting to read that you managed to hear James Rhodes in concert – and that you didn’t feel his playing was “outstanding”. He has received huge amounts of publicity in the UK (no doubt thanks to very good PR) and his recordings have had critical acclaim. Yet I’ve listened to them and found nothing to really excite me: his choice of repertoire is very pedestrian and ‘safe’ – or just “pop”. But he has certainly shaken up the rather stuffy world of classical piano, and if he encourages more people to go to classical concerts, that’s got to be a good thing.

But I wonder how long he will last in the limelight? I’m afraid I don’t think he will stay the course and become a grand old man of piano. Will be interesting to see how his career develops…..

Very nice video clip – thanks for posting!

Reply