British Solo Recital Debut of Dimitris Sgouros November 1983

Dimitris Sgouros made his British solo recital debut on the 29^th November 1983 at the Royal Festival Hall, with the following programme: Scarlatti Sonata in F, Chopin Ballade No 1 in G minor, Chopin Ballade No 4 in F minor, Liszt Mephisto Waltz, Brahms Variations on a theme of Paganini Op. 35, Balakirev Islamey.

Review of Dimitris Sgouros' British solo recital debut from The Times (of London), Thursday 1^st December 1983

Dimitris Sgouros

Festival Hall

On Tuesday night the 14-year-old Greek piano professor Dimitris Sgouros, with 35 piano concertos at his fingertips, gave his United Kingdom recital debut and half an hour's worth of encores to a packed Festival Hall.

His choice of Liszt's "Mephisto Waltz" was significant. Sgouros as pianist, just like Liszt as composer, is a deceptive virtuoso: the light of his technical mastery is blinding, his inventive energy self-regenerating to the point, almost, of self-intoxication. Yet that is not all. There is, driving the nerve and the muscle, a daemon that dares, a Faustian voraciousness for not only accomplishment but discovery, that bears up and substantiates his virtuosity.

For the moment though, the dominance of this spirit, a rare and rather startling quality in itself, means that one tends to learn rather more about Sgouros than about the composer in hand. Except, that is, when the two suddenly fuse, and then the sparks fly. This happened in the Liszt, and it happened most remarkably in the Brahms Paganini Variations, the most gripping performance I have ever heard.

Hilary Finch

Original programme book

London Philharmonic Orchestra 50th Anniversary Season - British debut of Dimitris Sgouros in the Rachmaninov 3rd Piano Concerto with Mstislav Rostropovich

Patron: His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent

Sgouros concert in Oxford University (where he pursued studies in post-graduate mathematics)

The Times (of London)
Saturday 19^th November 1983