THE
SOUND OF COLOURS
Mikhail
Rudy Piano Recital
Yong
Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall
Tuesday
(17 March 2015 )
This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 March 2015 with the title "A master in decline".
The Sound
of Colours
was a joint collaboration between Yong Siew Toh Conservatory and the Hong Kong
Arts Festival with well-known Russian pianist Mikhail Rudy in a recital of
programme music, essentially works of a descriptive nature that tell a
story. His concerts in Hong Kong were accompanied by
film and moving images, but it was a straight forward piano recital without the
frills here.
The first half was devoted to just one
work, Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka
arranged for piano solo, adapted by Rudy from the Russian composer's own
version for 4 hands and Three Movements from
Petrushka for 2 hands, a staple of piano competitions. Those who have heard
his splendid recording of this edition on EMI Classics or attended his
performance at the 1996 Singapore International Piano Festival will be alarmed
by the stark diminution of his abilities.
Stooped in posture and appearing
distinctly frail, he barely held the half-hour work together. True to the
recital's title, he painted an almighty wash of sound in The Shrovetide Fair but much of this was achieved by over-pedalling
and playing very fast. When it came to the familiar Russian Dance, his fingers were unable to keep up and there were
missed notes aplenty.
To his credit, Rudy was still able
conjure the lush “old world” atmosphere for this busy piece and his memory
mostly held up, even when the final sequence of dances at the Shrovetide Fair
was a hurried and hashed job. Instead of the big glissando ending of the Three Movements, the quiet ending with
Petrushka's ghost shaking his fist at his nemesis saw him regaining his
composure for an eerily subdued close.
The second half of shorter pieces was
better, but only just. Gluck's Melody
from Orpheus in Giovanni Sgambati's famous transcription was distinguished
by a singing tone over a lilting bass, and in the same key segued without a
break into Mozart's Fantasy in D minor,
where he took a somewhat epic view to this miniature masterpiece.
Appropriately stentorian were the opening
chords of Liszt's transcription of
Isolde's Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan
and Isolde. Here Rudy found the right passionate sweep to depict opera's
most poetic sexual meltdown. In
contrast, he accorded the requisite lightness of touch to two of Debussy's Études even if not all the notes were
there,
The recital proper closed with Ravel's
highly effective piano version of his La
Valse. Like Petrushka, its
multitudes of notes proved too much of a struggle for a clearly beleaguered
Rudy. The secret of a successful La Valse
is to make it appear careening off track while maintaining total control. In
this case, the careening part was taken too literally, neither by choice nor
design. This was a punch drunk impression of the piece rather than an
interpretation.
For many in the audience, the encore
segment was the best part. With the worst behind him, a more relaxed Rudy made
real music in Tchaikovsky's Barcarolle
(June) from The Seasons, an excellent swaggering Montagues and Capulets from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet and Chopin's Nocturne
in D flat major (Op.27 No.2), the last of which will remained a cherished
memory of a once commanding artist in sad decline.
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