KARACHI, Oct 27: The Goethe Institut, which is the only foreign cultural centre in Karachi that hosts music concerts and other programmes on a regular basis, had a delectable piano recital on its premises on Wednesday evening.

Guests were treated to a sumptuous feast of keyboard magic by Stephan Rahn and Isabel von Bernstoff, two visiting recitalists from Germany. The casket was simply dripping with jewels. There was Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Busoni (the only non-German in the musical fare) and the inimitable Hungarian-German, Franz Liszt. It was rather like watching a firework display, one rocket being let off at a time producing it own incandescence.

Franz Liszt, whose 200th anniversary is being celebrated in Europe, was the towering musical figure of the 19th century. A colossal pianist, the most awesome virtuoso of his era who in his playing and compositions pushed the boundaries of technique, texture and sound, Liszt was undoubtedly the greatest pianist of his century (Chopin was a close second) and essentially created the idea of the piano recital. As a composer he was the inventor of the orchestral tone poem who produced a body of sublime sacred choral works. He was often an iconoclastic adventurer, especially in works with fluid, diaphanous textures and sounds that anticipated impressionism. In many of his later works he explored radical chromatic harmony and dissonance, at times cutting loose from tonal moorings. As a conductor he introduced seminal scores which Wagnerian fans would appreciate.

I was particularly delighted to find Un Sospiro (A Sigh: an Italian title associated with the third of the three concert studies by Liszt) in the programme, which certainly evoked the loudest applause. Fritz Kreisler is reputed to have once confessed to a friend that this was the sort of music he would hear if he ever made it to that patch of verdant pasture up in the sky. Waldesrauchen (Forest Murmurs: first of the two piano works by Liszt known for its beauty and imitation of wind in the forest) was equally delightful with its descending quavers and harp-like arpeggios. Stephan Rahn played the two pieces with consummate ease, for he is a highly accomplished pianist. His handling of Bach was no less impressive, especially the dark, brooding passages.

This is Isabel von Bernstoff’s first visit to Pakistan and she certainly made an impression. Totally focused with a beautiful touch and control of dynamics she tackled Bach’s two chorale preludes with the respect a jeweller would accord to a rare Colombian sapphire, taking her time without ever weakening the music’s inexorable momentum.

The duets that followed which featured Schubert’s Lebensstuerme (Life’s Storm) and Brahms’ six frothy, effervescent Hungarian Dances were most enjoyable.

Ever since I heard Karachi’s legendary virtuoso the late Feroze Buchome play Schubert back in the 1960s, I was mesmerized. As a composer of songs, Schubert has no equal in fertility of melodic invention. All his work is graced with melody of the most seraphic kind. He ranks among the very greatest of composers in all forms except opera along with Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Haydn and is admired as one of the leading exponents of the early romantic era in music. Schubert remains one of the most frequently performed composers in repertoires around the world. The two song transcriptions were evidence of his supreme genius. The way Mr Rahn handled the pieces, filling every note with meaning in such a way that we felt intensely each mercurial change of mood, colour and texture, relishing the master’s astonishing harmonic invention to the full, and reliving the heartbreak, the ferocity, the elation and the visionary flights of these inexhaustible works, was marvellously involving.

I am eagerly awaiting the reappearance of the two pianists in this neck of the woods, for they certainly left an indelible impression on the audience.