Wagner at the piano: Wilhem Latchoumia

About the Event

Wilhem Latchoumia, virtuoso pianist, takes on Wagner, through transcriptions written specially for his instrument of predilection.

The first viewers of Luchino Visconti’s film Ludwig experienced the shock of discovering an unpublished work for piano by Wagner, which the Italian film director had chosen for the conclusion of his film. This Elegie in A flat major is Wagner’s musical testament, the last work which he composed.

A draft of eight measures for Tristan was ultimately rejected in 1858. He worked on it again in 1882 and completed six new measures. From Cosima’s Diary, we learn that he played it again on his piano in Venice on the eve of his death. Fourteen measures in all, therefore, for a composer for whom concision was not the first among his virtues, but that seem to capture in condensed form all the Wagnerian poetry, this tropism of the desire and decline that irrigates all of his work.

Wilhem Latchoumia demonstrates this by holding up a mirror with transcriptions and paraphrases by Liszt, Wolf, and others from some of the more fascinating moments of Wagnerian operas, from the ride of the Valkyries to the death of Isolde.