Memory and timelessness: Marc-André Hamelin’s poetic piano wizardry at the QEH

By Michelle Assay

The great pianist-pedagogue Heinrich Neuhaus reportedly asked his disciples for: “steel fingers, a cool head, and a warm heart”; some of his pupils ruefully added “plus a litre of blood”. Add to all that a deadpan facial expression and you have something like the phenomenon of Marc-André Hamelin.