Brighton Year-Round 2026
John Bruzon Piano Recital St Nicholas Church, Brighton
John Bruzon
Genre: Live Music, Music
Venue: St Nicholas Church, Dyke Road, Brighton
Festival: Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
John Bruzon yet again stepped in at short notice to cover a table concert that had to be cancelled at short notice. Unlike last week there was time to reschedule. Today’s recital focused on Chopin and Liszt. And he soon hopes to present an all-Liszt programme.
A hugely welcome recital and more treasurable than most last-minute substitutions.
Review
John Bruzon yet again stepped in at short notice to cover a table concert that had to be cancelled at short notice. Unlike last week there was time to reschedule. Today’s recital focused on Chopin and Liszt. And he soon hopes to present an all-Liszt programme.
Bruzon is a consummate and engaged introducer to these works. He gets up and walks down part of the aisle and provides a pithy summary.
First up is the dark Polonaise Op 26/1 in C# minor, the first mature Polonaise of the seven. It’s a stormy yet ruminant piece with the aristocratic dance moves suggesting some kind of class catastrophe. Bruzon underlines the rhythms yet intensifies the drama.
He next plays a Liszt sequence. Liszt wrote three Petrarch Sonnets: Sonnet 104 (1846-9, final version 1858) is one of the many that Petrarch write for the already dead Laura. More dramatic than the quieter 87 or more virtuosic 123, it’s a fine meditation rising to a troubled affirmation after agitated pages, and an only provisional peace, though one tinged with a pleasing pain and masochistic pleasure in Petrarch’s erotic capture. Or perhaps truce with death. Liszt would feel in tune with all of that.
The more religious Consolations from 1849-50 number six. Two are in that great Chopin discovery of D flat major and Four are in E major, a key of innocence and balm. The first certainly is, a kind of song without words. The second in E major sings out in a rapture of distress but is a true consolation, one of Liszt’s most exquisite inspirations. The third in D flat is more rhapsodic and aspirational. The next is long-breathed, its D flat somehow exploratory with low repeated chords chewing over mortality.
The fifth in E major returns to the higher register and is another song without words with a singing line accompanied by a middle register: it’s really a lullaby The sixth in E major again is the longest and more virtuosic than any. Here is Liszt not able to hold back proof of his Harmonies du Soir credentials. Huge arcing melodies sweep up and come to some provisional conclusion. An amen of sorts.
Bruzon is on a mission here. He intends to perform the slightly lesser-known Consolations in every recital this year, including the all-Liszt one he plans. He’s certainly got a point.
Bruzon finished with a Chopin Waltz, the dark-keyed Op 64/2 in C sharp minor. Its swaying melancholy owns a delicious descending glissando that sweeps down and up the keyboard.
A hugely welcome recital and more treasurable than most last-minute substitutions.
