The awe-inspiring young virtuoso, Czech pianist Jan Čmejla, impressed with his concert featuring world piano classics

Bad Sooden-Allendorf

The audience could not help but be amazed by the nineteen-year-old Czech pianist, Jan Čmejla, who dazzled on Friday evening in the Mozart Hall of the Culture and Congress Centre. Despite his young age, Jan Čmejla has already won several awards and his virtuoso playing has met the high demands of the concert series of world piano classics.
His first guest appearance in the spa town was due to a change in the programme. Originally, his Russian colleague Alexey Chernov (40) was to perform, but for reasons unknown, he did not. But to call Čmejla a "substitute" would be completely misguided.
After the brisk beginning of Fréderic Chopin's sonata, the melancholic tones of his famous funeral march were heard in the same piece, which no one dared to disturb in the completely silent hall even by the slightest clearing of throat.
Fluid and fast passages in several octaves, as in Beethoven's sonata "For Therese", were mastered by the pianist with playful ease. The nineteen-year-old Prague pianist underlined the various emotions he certainly aroused in the audience with his facial expressions and gestures. And yet - even before the hands of this musical prodigy were buried in the keys - his eyes often wandered to the ceiling of the music hall.
In the second part of the concert, the performer, who already earned accolades at the age of ten and was recently celebrated even in Washington, dedicated the concert to his favourite composer Robert Schumann. The passionate climax and conclusion was his piano cycle Carnaval, consisting of 22 movements, again performed with sovereignty and technical perfection.
The nineteen-year-old artist, who is artistically inspired by the musical performances of the world-famous Chinese pianist Lang Lang - whom he met in Vienna a few years ago - thanked the thunderous applause of the sixty-headed audience with two encores. Then he had to make a quick trip to the train station to catch the train to Mannheim, where he is studying his second year at the Music Academy. The spa town will see and hear him again on 31 March.