The pianist Hehuan Yu, winner of the Ibiza International Piano Competition in 2021, offered on Saturday a concert that was a walk through the history of music, guided by musicologist Àngels Ferrer, who introduced each composition with an explanation. The journey began at the end of the 18th century with an 18-year-old Mozart already in his creative prime; it continued with the nineteenth-century romanticism of Mendelssohn, in a changing and convulsive Europe; Liszt became a great star in a pious stage and ended with Béla Bartók and the 1920s, a time of rupture, of avant-garde, of upheaval: the piano turned into an instrument of percussion.
The encore closed the circle: the extraordinary pianist played a piece by Haydn, precursor of Mozart, whose delicate melody after the gale on the keys imposed by Bartók brought calm back to a devoted audience, aware of attending a unique and exceptional show in the humble auditorium of Sant Carles. An authentic luxury.
Ferrer, organizer of the contest and festival together with her father, Jaume Ferrer, reminded the audience of the difficulty of that edition, marked by the pandemic, and that until the last moment was in the air, because there were not even airplanes and global mobility was practically paralyzed. Finally the festival could be held, with the security measures imposed to prevent the spread of covid: masks, hydroalcoholic gel, safety distance (there was an empty chair among the attendees and they were grouped by families) and, in the houses that hosted the contestants, also gloves and a lot of care and soap.
In that edition, the talent, technique, lyricism and expressive capacity of the young Chinese Hehuan Yu stood out, which delighted the jury, as Ferrer recalled. The pianist, who in these more than three years has continued his brilliant musical career, returned to the island to present the album he has recorded and which is part of the prize he won in 2021.
This is the first album to be recorded in the competition of the Cultural Center of Sant Carles, and since that edition has already been incorporated into the first prize of this internationally prestigious contest.
The recording
A retired sound engineer who discovered the Sant Carles festival, Lluís Soler Farriols, wanted to collaborate with the initiative and offered to do so with the recording of an album by the winning pianist. A long history of collaborations of all kinds that began with the actor Fernando Rey, who had a house on the island and whom Jaume Ferrer asked for support for the festival; the actor replied that he was not a musician, but finally agreed and offered an unrepeatable recital on Federico García Lorca.
This is how this initiative that Jaume Ferrer started in 1987, when his daughter was 14 years old and a piano student, has been growing: with the dedication and selfless collaboration of many people who have wanted to support, in one way or another, this festival of a family dedicated to the promotion of classical music.
After the concert, the pianist distributed CDs among the audience, and signed them with kindness. Ferrer thanked the support of the mayoress of Santa Eulària, Carmen Ferrer, and the councilor Salvador Losa (present in the audience, along with the councilor of Culture), who also distributed discs.
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