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The Youth’s Magic Steinway New York
Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center
07/08/2025 -
Joseph Haydn: Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI:50
Robert Schumann: Humoreske, Opus 20
Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Opus 101
Igor Stravinsky: Three movements from The Firebird (arranged by Guido Agosti)
Llewellyn Sánchez-Werner (Pianist) 
L. Sánchez-Werner (© Courtesy of t the Artist)
“I still consider music is the ideal music of the soul. But some think it is solely to tickle the ear. Others listen to it as though it’s a lesson in arithmetic.”
Robert Schumann
“My music is best understood by children and animals.”
Igor Stravinsky
Llewellyn Sánchez-Werner, the second recitalist for the International Keyboard Institute and Festival was a new name to me, But from the very first three plunks of Haydn’s last piano sonata, my ignorance was all too embarrassing. From his recital last night, effortlessly evolving from 18th to 19th to 20th Century, one felt mesmerized by far more than his dazzling technique. He actually made the piano speak.
No, not a Janácek human conversation, not a background to a song. Mr. Sánchez‑Werner brought out the language of the piano. He could swing from the manic‑depressing Schumann singularity to the echt‑German Beethoven march. As for the opening Haydn, some pianists would see that a tinkling curtain‑raiser. Mr. Sánchez‑Werner extracted the genial Papa Haydn himself from all three movements.
One could hear, with no problems at all, the composer sitting at his piano in his tiny Esterházy room, laughing, even giggling, perhaps swilling a lager or two, thinking, “This ain’t easy to play. But them that master it will have a damned good time.”
As in all the music, the 28-year-old Mr. Sánchez‑Werner, hair in a Lisztian cut, not only mastered this opening, but injected that spark of piano-language into Haydn’s sonata.
Then again, this was only the start of Mr. Sánchez‑Werner’s wondrous recital. His enthusiasm never diverted from his expression, his balance so instinctively good, that in the chaos of the Firebird, he managed to draw out all those Russian lines.
Above all, Mr. Sánchez-Werner did something even rarer than the Schumann’s Humoreske itself. Every measure was not only played superbly. He made each measure interesting.
The program notes describe a life which probably contributes to his readings. A San Francisco prodigy (with a triple‑barreled Welsh-Spanish-Teutonic name), he has performed around the world playing in Baghdad, raising money for the Iraq Children’s Hospital; and Rwanda, with money to rebuild the country after the Hutu‑Tutsi mutual slaughters. Beside his work in worldwide concert halls, he performed before both Obama and Biden. And, with a vast knowledge of history, he was in a documentary exploring that inexplicable relationship between Wagner and Judaism.
What has that done for his music? Only the remote regions of the mind would know. What we knew was the opening Haydn as merry, bumptious work played with zest and zeal.
The Beethoven Opus 101 is not “deeper” (whatever that means) yet in a way, more challenging than the Hammerklavier. Like the following Humoreske, Mr. Sánchez‑Werner had to tie the calm almost ethereal opening to semi‑militant march, a slow interlude and the following volcanic Allegro. Tempo was the be‑all here, and Mr. Sánchez‑Werner took that march with a steady pace, nothing at all martial. The finale was zipped through so quickly that it could sound blurred–as well as impressive.
Beethoven made it sound like one piece. Schumann’s Humoreske is always problematic. Seven different sections wandering from dreamily poetic through a tornado of notes. The title hardly gives us Three Stooges humor, but the way it was played here the piece could have been a series of stories told around a campfire.
So, if the artist didn’t make it an organic whole, he did, apparently, give a septet of variations on his love for Clara. A kind of “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” in 20 minutes and 88 keys.
I never thought of that, since Mr. Sánchez‑Werner was ethereally into the slow movements and surveyed the finale with no problems.
I. Stravinsky/G. Agosti
The final three movements from Firebird were arranged by Guido Agosti, a student (obviously!) of Busoni. Just as the Haydn is a curtain‑raiser, Firebird is a grand finale. Here, though, Llewellyn Sánchez‑Werner showed with what genius he approached the concert. Yes, his Firebird was all fireworks. But the stand‑up applause was no more and no less than that from the entire concert.
For Mr. Sánchez-Werner eschewed a showoff technique. He offered each work as both an homage to the individual composers, and an individual of joy paean to music itself.
Harry Rolnick
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