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Simon Lane
Collaborative pianist
- Talented duo get series off to good start
- John Packwood, 30/5/08 - The Bristol Evening Post
Katie Stillman (violin) Simon Lane (piano): St. George's Bristol
For the first of the summer Thursday lunchtime series, the young talented duo of Katie Stillman and Simon Lane presented two contrasting sonatas.
Ravel's Sonata in G written in 1927 presents difficulties for both parts and in the first movement the violinist maintained a beautiful long line with some superb playing. Both soloists made a convincing job of the central Blues section whilst in the Perpertuum Mobile, Miss Stillman showed considerable skill and infectious rhythm.
Franck's Sonata is altogether more straightforward and melodious. The languid opening on the violin prompts the pianist to respond in a grand manner which then leads into a dialogue between the two players.
The fiery allegro is followed by a recitativo which recalls earlier themes before the gentle finale in which the great tune sounded both spontaneous and joyful in their capable hands.
Stillman’s subtle tone and clever choice of tempos were complimented by Lane’s piano part – he proved an inspired partner with some highly polished playing.
- What makes a good violin and piano duo?
- Tully Potter - The Strad, June 2008
Tully Potter has his question answered by the end of a month's concert-going.
"In terms of a violin and piano duo, only at the end of the month did I hear a satisfactory combination of players, in a lunchtime recital at St John’s, Smith Square, on 27th March. Then it took only a few bars of Beethoven’s C minor Sonata from pianist Simon Lane for me to sense that I was going to hear a real partnership with violinist Katie Stillman. This young Canadian studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, where she got to know Lane. I thought she drew a beautiful line in the first two movements of the Beethoven, and I liked the viola-like plangency of her middle register............
She and Lane characterised all four movements of the Beethoven vividly and always chose apt tempos, which they sustained well. Three pieces from Britten’s Suite op.6 made a change, especially the lyrical “lullaby”, coloured imaginatively by Stillman. I enjoyed Ravel’s Sonata more than I usually do, because the artists seemed so sure of what they were doing."
- Park Lane Group
- George Hall - The Guardian 10/1/07
"...where once again Lane's ear for detail ensured a fine attention to the burgeoning summer of Thomas's poem as reflected in Payne's lush piano writing."
- PLG Young Artists New Year Series
- Richard Whitehouse 7/1/07 - classicalsource.com
“If it's New Year, it must be PLG! The annual week of performances (this year Sunday to Thursday) that comprises the Park Lane Group's series focussing on young artists and (mainly) contemporary music is a reliable fixture at the start of January, and this pair of recitals (at 6.15 and 7.45, typically) opened proceedings in the strongest way possible...
The main evening slot was, as usual, shared between two groups of performers. The Heath Quartet opened...
Even so, the highlight was Aaron Copland's Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson (1950) – given what is a surprisingly rare complete outing, and a performance by mezzo-soprano Karina Lucas and the pianist Simon Lane which brought out a quizzical humour and understated pathos that are as central to Dickinson's verse as to Copland's thoughtfully perceptive settings. Her clarity of diction enabling the nuances of both text and music to be amply savoured, Lucas revealed complete identity with this underrated song-cycle that made for a listening experience both pleasurable and absorbing.
She was equally successful in songs by English composers: Peter Dickinson's Extravaganzas (1969), which sets breezily surrealistic verse by ‘beat’ poet Gregory Corso with no mean imagination, and the same composer's bluesily unorthodox treatment of the Robert Burns evergreen “A Red Red Rose” – separated by Anthony Payne's raptly intense setting of Edward Thomas's “Adlestrop” (1989).
A fine evening's music-making, then, with the only proviso that the next four instalments of this PLG series will be hard put to maintain the interpretative consistency evinced by the performers gathered here this evening.”
- PLG Young Artists at the Purcell Room
- Hilary Finch 10/1/07 - The Times
“Lucas gave a poignantly sober performance of Anthony Payne’s wonder-filled setting of Edward Thomas’s Adlestrop, with her fine pianist, Simon Lane, activating “all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire”.”
- Park Lane Group, Purcell Room, London
- Keith Potter 11/1/07 - The Independent
"......the Canadian violinist Katie Stillman and the pianist Simon Lane offered alert, sensitive and mature performances in a nicely planned programme of late 20th-century works....."
- PLG Young Artists New Year Series - 8th January 2007
- Colin Anderson - classicalsource.com
"“Pianist Simon Lane (making his second PLG appearance this year) was an equal partner. Following pieces by Colin Matthews (Chaconne with Chorale: sinuous and eloquent; and Moto Perpetuo: driving) and Toru Takemitsu (From Far Beyond Chrysanthemums and November Fog: ethereal, poetic and exquisite), the latter finding Stillman accurate and expressive in the highest registers, Lutosławski’s masterly Subito (one of his last works, from 1994) was given a quite brilliant performance revealing the music’s web of fantasy and energy in the most compelling way"
- PLG Young Artists - Purcell Room
- Richard Morrison 10/1/07 - The Times
“Stillman and Lane held their nerve and revealed exemplary technique in Lutoslawski’s explosive and fiendishly testing Subito. …….”
- Fanfares and Moonbeams
- Nick Kimberley 9/1/07 - The Evening Standard
“Park Lane Group's annual Young Artists series is a valuable showcase for emerging talent, and a bracing way to unblock ears still clogged with pre-Christmas pap. The chosen repertoire does not draw large audiences but the players' commitment, like their skill, is plain to see.
Pianist Simon Lane and violinist Katie Stillman kicked off last night's first concert with Paul Whitmarsh's All Those Confessions..., as angular as the Patrick Caulfield images that provide its title. It became something mysterious and allusive within a deliberately restricted palette of colours; Lane and Stillman caught its shifting moods, now mournful and keening, now strident. In Witold Lutoslawski's Subito, the two instruments jostled for prominence before collapsing in a perfectly judged sonic heap”
- Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms: The Navarra Quartet and Simon Lane
- Mike Wheeler, 4th May 2006 - Music and Vision Daily
The Navarra Quartet is an up-and-coming Anglo-Dutch Ensemble which has already won a number of prizes and awards. If this evening [26 April 2006, Derby Chamber Music at Murray Park School, Mickleover, Derby, UK] was anything to go by, there will be more.
They launched Mozart's B flat Quartet, K589 …………..
Cellist Nathaniel Boyd was then joined by pianist Simon Lane for Beethoven's last cello sonata, Op 102 No 2, in which they had the music's lyricism and dynamic energy in almost ideal balance. The slow movement's contrasting middle section was allowed to bloom in a particularly effective way, and the finale was full of playful wit.
After the interval all five players came together for one of the most gripping accounts of the Brahms Piano Quintet I think I've heard. Their flowing tempo for the slow movement found the poetry while leaving no room for self-indulgence. They set fast tempos for the last two movements, too, but nothing felt rushed. Rather, there was a compelling sense of powerful forces only just kept under control. It was just the kind of rhythmically taut, muscular playing the work needs -- hair-raising for all the right reasons.
- The Wigmore Hall 20th February 2006
- Geoffrey Norris, 24th Feb 2006 - The Daily Telegraph
The second part of this shared recital, presented by the Tillett Trust Young Artists' Platform, was perhaps more traditional but no less striking. The violinist Katie Stillman and pianist Simon Lane played Beethoven, Lutoslawski and Elgar in a way that commanded attention not just for its technical adroitness but also for its stylistic acumen. Tone and temperament were shrewdly pitched for Beethoven's A minor Sonata Op 23, capturing the music's spry propulsion in the first movement and its restless unease in the last.
Lutoslawski's Subito transcends its original function as a competition exercise, its testing contrasts of dynamics, touch and articulation distilled into a pungent miniature. Stillman and Lane performed it with a sharply focused spectrum of mood, and in Elgar's E minor Sonata combined tenderness, wistful nostalgia and red-blooded passion in an interpretation of terrific distinction and compelling emotional force.
- Honiton Festival 2006
- John Dalton, 24th May 2006 - Midweek Herald
"Katie Stillman, with pianist Simon Lane, provided stimulating accounts of sonatas by Mozart, Brahms and Debussy"
- Young Artist’s Platform – Fairfield Hall, 31st May 2005
- Howard Thomas - Croydon Advertiser
The Canadian violinist Katie Stillman.............
Joined by the fine pianist Simon Lane, there followed a vivid account of Beethoven’s Sonata opus 12 no.3. This expressively driven duo breathed fresh air into the music as it passed from player to player.