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Emanuel Ax at Union Station Pianos in the CityRacheal McCaig

One of the best piano recitals of the season took place at midday on Wednesday in downtown Toronto.

I think I may have been the only person to hear the whole thing.

That's because the pianist, the renowned Emanuel Ax, split the recital into five locations, playing mini-concerts, one after the other, at CBC's Atrium, Union Station, Royal Bank Plaza, City Hall and the Hospital for Sick Children.

For audiences ranging from 50 to 80 people in each venue, nestled right next to the pianist with public-address announcements blaring, kids wandering, and office workers rushing by, Ax provided a master-class in the piano. On five Steinways set up for the occasion, he performed heart-melting Brahms Intermezzi, a virtuoso's selection of Debussy preludes, music by Ravel and Mozart, Liszt's Valse oubliee, a waltz and a mazurka by Chopin, ending with a spectacular rendition of Chopin's Scherzo No. 2. Even with all the distractions, the playing was gorgeous, polished, controlled, stunning.

Ax was travelling through downtown to kick off the Toronto Symphony's RBC Piano Extravaganza, which he curated. For 11 days, Toronto will hear that most versatile of all instruments featured in concerts all over town. Ax will perform five times over that period with the TSO and with a series of mostly Canadian pianist-colleagues, an extraordinary feast. He will be part of an all-afternoon, sample-at-your-leisure, free series of piano concerts on Feb. 8 at Koerner Hall (with several colleagues). He'll also be demonstrating the new TSO Steinway (which he helped select) with kids from Regent Park. He'll host a concert of opera transcriptions at The Four Seasons Centre.

Until Feb. 14, Ax, the TSO, and the piano will dominate the musical landscape here. The festival was an idea Ax first introduced a couple of years ago in Chicago. It caught the attention of Loie Fallis, the TSO's brilliant and too-little-heralded vice-president of artistic planning. Now it's here.

Why the piano? Well, says Ax, for a long time the piano was the iPod, the iPad, and the CD player all rolled into one. Until well into the 20th century, if you wanted to hear music – popular or classical – you played it yourself at the keyboard. Most symphonies for two centuries were first heard at the piano, not in inaccessible and expensive concert halls. Since the classical era, the piano has been interwoven with the Western musical experience – it was the instrument of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Ravel. It's the centre of our musical tradition.

And, according to Ax, one of the world's great virtuosos, it's also easy to play. "The piano is very friendly," says Ax. "You don't have to spend a lot of time learning how. You walk up to it, you put your hands down, and you're playing. Then you just have to figure out the right notes."

If only.

Later Wednesday night, Ax traded his midday slacks, sweater and loafers for more traditional concert attire as he performed a solo Schubert Impromptu and a Mozart concerto with the TSO at Roy Thomson Hall. The venue might have been different, but the artistry was the same. When Ax plays, he creates the illusion, true of only the greatest artists, that the piece in question could not conceivably be performed in any other way. His Schubert was silken yet powerful, the Mozart playful, operatic, perfectly articulated.

And after a day fighting the booming train announcements at Union Station and the adjacent cafeteria noise at Sick Kids, the solitary cell phone that started to ring as Ax was about to begin the third movement of the Mozart was hardly even a disturbance. He made a joke about it to the orchestra, mimicked the ring tone on his piano, and then launched into the finale.

For the next two weeks, his generosity, good humour and superb playing will be alive all over the city – a perfect antidote to an otherwise morose, northern, February metropolis.

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