YEVGENY SUDBIN PLAYS RACH 2 / POETRY OF ECSTASY / Review

YEVGENY SUDBIN PLAYS RACH 2

with Orchestra of the Music Makers

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (27 May 2023)

 

POETRY OF ECSTASY

YEVGENY SUDBIN Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

Thursday (1 June 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 June 2023  with the title "OMM shines with Elgar, Yevgeny Sudbin fares better in solo recital".

Visiting Russian pianists have over the decades made strong impressions on Singapore audiences. During the 1980s, it was veteran Aleksei Nasedkin in concerto performances with the Singapore Symphony. The nineties and noughties saw Nikolai Demidenko and Dmitri Alexeev in recitals and more concertos. Yevgeny Sudbin, from the next generation, is no stranger here, having made Rachmaninov and Scriabin concerto recordings with the national orchestra.  

Photo: Yong Junyi

 

In commemoration of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov’s 150^th birth anniversary, his very popular Second Piano Concerto was given an airing by Sudbin and the Orchestra of the Music Makers led by Chan Tze Law. Given its familiarity and having recorded it before, it was surprising to see Sudbin perform with a tablet score. A safety net, perhaps. Riding on high passion and flowing Russian juices, a potent blend of heart-on-sleeve melancholy and vulnerability, the performance was on edge throughout.

Photo: Yong Junyi

 

And then it happened. Sudbin’s entry after the finale’s furious fugato was unusually emphatic but a momentary lapse saw him scrambling to recover. The concerto’s exciting last pages saw a recovery and strong finish, but the copybook had somewhat been blotted. The much less frenetic encore of Scriabin’s Etude in C sharp minor (Op.2 No.1) was a soothing balm.

Photo: Yong Junyi

 

The evening’s highest lights came from the orchestra on its own. Glinka’s Ruslan And Ludmilla Overture made for a thrilling opener, bringing to mind SSO’s 2014 BBC Proms debut, but it was a rare performance of Edward Elgar’s monumental First Symphony in A flat major that stole the show.

 

Photo: Yong Junyi

Conductor Chan is a born Elgarian, one who truly understands the English composer’s direction of nobilmente (nobility) in his music. In the 50-minute long work, once described by conductor Thomas Beecham as the musical equivalent of St Pancras Station (a mighty red-bricked edifice topped with Gothic towers and turrets), sheer grandeur and pomp were brought out with neither trepidation nor apology.

Photo: Yong Junyi

 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

After a respite of four days, Sudbin returned refreshed for his solo recital, reliving repertoire from his most celebrated CD recordings. Opening with Haydn’s Sonata in B minor (Hob.XV1:32), his vision of seriousness balanced with biting wit refuted any notion that the Austrian composer was dry or academic. Mastery of sonority on the modern piano, with liberal use of pedalling, may seem at odds with period instrument practice but it mattered little when the results are aurally alluring.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

 

The best case was made for a selection of six Domenico Scarlatti sonatas, which alternated between slow and fast numbers. His freely added new harmonies and octave doublings enhanced rather than detracted from the listening experience. Although arguably the best part of the recital, piano students will, however, be advised not to follow suit in their associated board examinations.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

 

In Romantic music, Sudbin unleashed the full gamut of keyboard colours. Chopin’s Third Ballade radiated the warmth of sunshine, while in Liszt’s Harmonies Du Soir (Evening Harmonies), the penultimate Transcendental Etude, mysteries of night were gradually revealed, finally climaxing in blazing octaves and chords. The frolicsome spirit of Debussy’s L’Isle Joyeuse (Isle Of Joy), from opening trills to the final rapturous tumble down the keyboard, was relived in a glorious display of joie de vivre.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

 

Russian composer Alexander Scriabin’s Fifth Sonata (sometimes called Poem Of Ecstasy), while having similar orgiastic leanings, took on a more frenzied and carnal edge. In this his signature piece, Sudbin shone like a man possessed. On the strength of this, he may be said to have inherited the mantle of the late great Ukrainian pianists Vladimir Horowitz and Sviatoslav Richter.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

YEVGENY SUDBIN PIANO RECITAL / Review

YEVGENY SUDBIN Piano Recital
Victoria Concert Hall
Thursday (16 January 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 January 2020 with the title "Seductive piano arrangements".

Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin has become a familiar figure with Singapore audiences over the years, with appearances at the Singapore International Piano Festival and Singapore Symphony Orchestra concerts. His latest recital was however part of a year-long series organised by Altenburg Arts, but had the heady feel of the celebrated Piano Festival.

Hailed as one of the planet’s foremost interpreters of Scarlatti, his recital opened with a selection of four Sonatas by the Italian baroque composer. Heard on the modern grand piano, these are a world apart from their origins as harpsichord pieces. Applying generous but judicious pedalling, svelte legatos and incisive accents, these shined like variegated gems.

Purists might object to the ornamentations applied to the familiar Pastorale in D minor (K.9) or octave augmentations in La Chasse in C major (K.159), but these stylings were spontaneous and well within the spirit of our times. Works of antiquity need not be preserved in moth balls as museum artifacts, but may be enjoyed for their ageless quality.

The same can be said of piano transcriptions of orchestral works. Even though 88 keys may not completely supplant the sonorities of massed string, wind and percussion instruments, well-crafted arrangements can simulate orchestral textures and even seduce the ear. Such was Sudbin’s transcription of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo And Juliet Fantasy Overture.

This not only conveyed the dramatic intensity and contrapuntal complexity of the original, but had the audacity of being ridiculously difficult to pull off. While basking in its big melody and brooding with darker pages, Sudbin joins the likes of Rachmaninov, Horowitz, Feinberg and Pletnev as master pianist-transcribers of the Russian school.  

Still with Tchaikovsky, nothing could be more different than two Nocturnes (Op.10 No.1 and Op.19 No.4), charming salon works which revealed a more melancholic and sensitive side. Far more demanding technically was Scriabin’s Nocturne in D flat major (Op.9 No.2), with its dizzying central cadenza, accomplished by left hand alone. As if to prove the point, Sudbin kept his right hand firmly planted on his lap.

The recital’s final work was Ravel’s diabolical triptych Gaspard de la nuit, inspired by three poems of Gothic horror by Aloysius Bertrand. This is a virtuoso’s paradise, and how Sudbin mastered the liquid tremolos and splashy sweeps of Ondine, water piece par excellence. Stillness and bleakness enveloped Le Gibet, with its insistently tolling B flat octave accompanying the swaying motion of a hanging corpse on the gallows.

Little would prepare one for the sheer malevolence of Sudbin’s portrait of the bow-legged goblin Scarbo. This was the Devil in person himself, manifested in coruscating violence and a reading that would scarcely be bettered for sheer pianistic brilliance.

Loud and noisy applause greeted its mercurial and elusive close. Sudbin’s obligatory encore was Scarlatti’s lyrical Sonata in F minor (K.466), a declaration that the recital had completed a perfect circle.  

A PIANO RECITAL NOT TO BE MISSED: YEVGENY SUDBIN at Victoria Concert Hall, Thursday 16 January 2020

Here is a piano recital not to be missed. 

Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin makes a welcome return to Singapore for a one-night-only piano recital at Victoria Concert Hall on 16 January 2020. This recital is presented by Altenburg Arts, the brains behind Yuja Wang and Martha Argerich's debuts in Singapore.

Place: Victoria Concert Hall

When: 7.30 pm, Thursday 16 January 2020

Tickets available at SISTIC

https://www.sistic.com.sg/events/sudbin0120 

Programme:

SCARLATTI 4 Sonatas

TCHAIKOVSKY-SUDBIN

Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture

TCHAIKOVSKY Two Nocturnes

SCRIABIN Nocturne for the left hand, Op.9 No.2

RAVEL Gaspard de la nuit

CD Review (The Straits Times, May 2018)

MEDTNER & RACHMANINOV 
Piano Works

YEVGENY SUDBIN, Piano

BIS 1848 / *****

A LA RUSSE

ALEXANDRE KANTOROW, Piano

BIS 2150 / *****

Russian piano music came to prominence in the late 19^th century, fuelled by nationalism and distinguished by outsized technical virtuosity schooled in the conservatories of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. These two recordings of Russian piano music by young pianists merit serious attention.

Two pianist-composers who defined late Russian Romantic pianism, Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951) and Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943), receive equal billing in the Russian Yevgeny Sudbin's hour-long recital. Here Medtner's cerebral and Rachmaninov's more visceral qualities are keenly displayed. 

The former's single-movement Sonata Reminiscenza, Sonata Tragica and pithy short pieces called Skazki (Fairy Tales), heard alongside a selection of the latter's better-known Preludes (from Op.23 and 32) make for a perfect introduction to their similarities and contrasts.

Frenchman Alexandre Kantorow's all-Russian recital disc is longer and piles on more virtuoso fodder. The longest work is Rachmaninov's First Sonata, a three-movement epic inspired by the Faust legend, playing for almost 40 minutes. 

Guido Agosti's transcription of three movements from Stravinsky's ballet Firebird and Balakirev's Islamey also receive thunderous readings, tempered by the more genteel salon fare of Tchaikovsky's character pieces. A more convincing juxtaposition of musical steel and satin will be hard to find.    

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, August 2016)

SCARLATTI 18 Sonatas

YEVGENY SUDBIN, Piano

BIS 2138 / *****

The Russia-born London-based pianist Yevgeny Sudbin made his big first splash in 2005 with a debut recording of keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti (1885-1757) that garnered rave reviews. 

He comes full circle with a latest recording of 18 more sonatas by the Italian composer who was domiciled in Madrid as the personal keyboard teacher of the Queen of Spain. Most of his 555 or so sonatas were originally conceived for harpsichord but Sudbin regards these as transcriptions when heard on the modern piano.

He takes great liberties in creating new sonorities and textures, by adding octaves, harmonies and sometimes altering the registers of certain voices. All this makes for a refreshingly different listen, even if purists may baulk at the excesses. 

There are five sonatas in the key of D minor alone, and all of these sparkle like multi-faceted gems. The famous “Pastoral” (D.9) is taken at a brisk clip, while the “Aria” (K.32) benefits from harmonic augmentation at its repeat. The little known K.417 is a fugal study that J.S.Bach would have been proud of, while the virtuosic “Guitar” (K.141) revels in repetitive strumming and orchestral effects. Here is a most invigorating release.       

VISIONS

CHRISTINA & 

MICHELLE NAUGHTON, Two Pianos

Warner Classics 0825646011360 / ****1/2

One might not expect such a glamorous cover design for a disc of music by 20^th century French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), but this recording is more about the Naughton twins, Christina and Michelle, who are the modern American counterpart of the celebrated Labeque sisters. 

The main work is Messiaen's Visions De L'Amen (1943), a massive seven-movement work which plays for almost 45 minutes, pondering on the spiritual, terrestrial and celestial aspects of being from his devout Roman Catholic perspective.

Far from being too abstract, each movement which is an “Amen” reflects on a different act of joy, from massive chords representing the creation, the kinetic energy of stars and revolving planets, the excitable fluttering of angels and birdsong, all through to the ecstatic carillons of final consummation. 

This love-in continues by way of a simple Bach chorale (from the cantata Actus Tragicus) to the three movements of American minimalist John Adams' Hallelujah Junction (1996), also infectiously driven pieces. One can scarcely find a better ambassador for these highly charged works than the Naughtons, who perform with sympathy, conviction and no little virtuosity.    

      

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, May 2015)

SCRIABIN Piano Concerto

MEDTNER Piano Concerto No.3

YEVGENY SUDBIN, Piano

Bergen Philharmonic / Andrew Litton

BIS 2088 / *****

This is a most apt coupling of piano concertos by two Russian pianist-composers who were contemporaries of Rachmaninov yet trailed him considerably in terms of popularity. Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) was Rachmaninov's classmate and rival at the Moscow Conservatory. His Piano Concerto of 1896 was an early but transitional work, revealing Chopinesque influences yet gradually finding a voice of his own. It is in the finale, the longest movement, where his flight of fantasy finally takes wing with an impassioned climax that would please any Rachmaninov fan.

Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951) was a junior but close friend of Rachmaninov. His Third Piano Concerto (1940) is arguably the best of three he wrote. Cast in three movements played without a break, it exhibits a mastery of the sonata form but does not reveal its secrets on first acquaintance.   More Germanic than Russian, it nevertheless is imbued with the lush Romanticism and scintillating piano writing for which Rachmaninov was acclaimed.  

The young St Petersburg-born pianist Yevgeny Sudbin is a true successor of the great Russian pianists Dmitri Alexeev and Nikolai Demidenko, going one further having recorded all three Medtner concertos. His playing is incisive and brimming with vigour, matched by his own thoughtful programme notes. He quotes Horowitz who once asked, “Why nobody plays Medtner?” The answer is simple: Medtner’s music is often too difficult and cerebral to pull off convincingly. On those counts, Sudbin at least proves him wrong. 

SOLO

ALISA WEILERSTEIN, Cello

Decca 478 52962 / *****

Young American cellist Alisa Weilerstein's first solo album has an underlying theme based on folk music and dances from around the world. The Hungarian nationalist composer Zoltan Kodaly's Sonata Op.8 is the longest work at over a half hour, with three concentrated movements of impassioned laments and soul searching, typical of deep Slavic melancholy. She launches headlong into the music and does not flinch at its myriad complexities.

Hispanic fire lies at the heart of both contemporary Argentinian Osvaldo Golijov's Omaramor and Spaniard Gaspar Cassado's Suite. The former is a set of variations on Carlos Gardel's My Beloved Buenos Aires, with the melody revealed at the very end. The latter incorporates three dances, a Zaraband, the Sardana (a Catalan dance) and an infectious Jota to close.

Chinese-American Bright Sheng's Seven Tunes Heard In China was dedicated to and premiered by Yo-Yo Ma. Its short movements include the popular song Little Cabbage (Xiao Bai Cai) from Hebei, the onomatopoeic train song Diu Diu Dong from Taiwan and a Tibetan Dance. Weilerstein's outsized cello tones tempered by sensitivity and a variety of timbral colours is joy throughout this magnificent recital. Highly recommended.

CD REVIEWS (The Straits Times, August 2014)

BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No.3

MOZART Piano Concerto No.23

YEVGENY SUDBIN, Piano

Minnesota Orchestra / Osmo Vänskä

BIS 1978 / ****1/2

This masterful coupling brings together the two piano concertos by Mozart and Beethoven set in the key of C minor, often associated with tragedy and high drama. Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin performs the concertos in chronological order, revealing how Mozart’s 1786 masterpiece may have influenced Beethoven in his composition completed in 1804. The main themes in the first movements of both are related to the C minor triad, with Mozart being the more harmonically adventurous. Ultimately both composers find a catharsis in their own unique and inimitable ways. While Mozart remains gloomy to the end, Beethoven unreserved joy caps his only minor key concerto, a gambit that is later repeated in his Fifth Symphony.  

Being a composer himself, Sudbin crafts his own cadenzas for the Mozart, which are bold and innovative. Although departing from the classical sensibilities of the rococo period, Mozart would have heartily approved. Beethoven’s own cadenza is used for his concerto although one wonders what Sudbin might have come up with. There is little to be found wanting in both performances, excellently supported by the Minnesota Orchestra and its Finnish Music Director Osmo Vänskä, who has since returned after the orchestra’s period of lockdown. More can be hoped from this successful partnership. 

CATOIRE Piano Trio / Piano Quartet

Room-Music

Hyperion 67512 / ****1/2

This is not a new disc but one that merits highlighting because the music of Russian composer Georgy Catoire (1861-1926) deserves revival, to be heard in concert now and then. He was a contemporary of Anton Arensky and Alexander Glazunov but studied with the German Karl Klindworth, a disciple of Wagner. Thus his music is more Germanic and modern-sounding in character but retaining the typically dark hues of Slavic melancholy. The Piano Trio in F minor (1900) in three movements is a good start point as it regularly reminds the listener of early Rachmaninov but with the chromatic colourings of the Wagner-influenced Belgian Cesar Franck. A rather enjoyable 27 minutes of late Romanticism it is.

The Piano Quartet in A minor (1916) is rather denser in textures and not as readily approachable. Although slightly shorter than the trio, it does have a number of memorable moments, including in the paradoxical fairy-tale lightness and irony of its finale. Repeated listening will be readily repaid in dividends. In between is a short Elegy in D minor (1916) for violin and piano, which serves like a welcome interlude. These very convincing performances come from Room Music, formed by pianist Stephen Coombs, violist Yoko Inoue and two members of the renowned Chilingirian Quartet. Here is a much-needed tonic for those who tire of Tchaikovsky and his circle.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, January 2014)

RACHMANINOV Symphony No.1

Piano Concerto No.1

YEVGENY SUDBIN, Piano

Singapore Symphony Orchestra / SHUI LAN

BIS 2012 / *****

       

With this album, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra completes its cycle of Rachmaninov’s three symphonies. This is also the finest of the three recordings as Shui Lan and his charges, having worked on the Russian romantic’s music over the years, have his early rough and ready style spot on. The First Symphony in D minor was abandoned by Rachmaninov after its disastrous premiere in 1897, but was rediscovered and pieced together after his death. A raw diamond, this is his most original utterance despite its apparent flaws. Its brooding Slavic temperament, built upon the “vengeance motif” and influences from the Russian Orthodox church also are most palpable here.

Its existence puts into perspective Rachmaninov’s final work Symphonic Dances, which now sounds like the epilogue of a journey which this work fitfully started. Listen to the music’s sheer vehemence, paradoxical tenderness and vulnerability, all captured in a broad sweep of its four movements by the SSO. The coupling is also excellent, with young Russian virtuoso Yevgeny Sudbin making his mark in the early and lyrical First Piano Concerto (revised in 1917), a recording comparable with the best in the catalogue.

PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No.3

BARTOK Piano Concerto No.2

LANG LANG, Piano

Berlin Philharmonic / SIMON RATTLE

Sony Classical 88883732252 / ****1/2

       

This is Lang Lang’s first concerto disc for the Sony Classical label, and rare recorded excursion into music more modern than Rachmaninov. Both he and his famous partners have definite if not conventional ideas for the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto. Running over half an hour, this is one of the slower versions of the work. Most play for about 28 minutes, while the composer himself clocked in under 25 minutes. This was achieved by deliberately slowing down certain sections in all movements while keeping the fast-paced pages up to speed. The grotesquery inherent in Prokofiev’s score invites latitude of interpretations, exploited here to the full without resorting to caricature.

If there is any pianist who could actually popularise Bartok’s Second Piano Concerto, the thorniest of the Hungarian composer’s trilogy, that might be Lang Lang. Their take is a tad leisurely at 30 minutes, but there is little sense of lagging behind. Instead the clarity of articulation in its neoclassical pages coupled with an overriding virtuosity is hard to ignore. The music’s primal rawness and aggressive edge is retained, but polished to a fine sheen in this recording. Who would have thought that Bartok could sound this friendly? It is imperative that these same forces get to bring out Prokofiev’s Second and Bartok’s Third piano concertos as well.

YEVGENY SUDBIN Piano Recital / 20th Singapore International Piano Festival / Review

YEVGENY SUDBIN Piano Recital

20^th Singapore International Piano Festival

SOTA Concert Hall

Thursday (20 June 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 June 2013 with the title "Sudbin amazes at piano fest opening".

The 20^th edition of the venerated Singapore International Piano Festival opened with a recital by a pianist that reflects the spirit and ethos of the nation’s premier keyboard event. Young Russian Yevgeny Sudbin is on the rising arc of a considerable concert career. He is an artist unafraid to take on unusual and adventurous recital programmes to challenge and to provoke.

Although the underlying theme of this festival was “Music and Movement”, with an acknowledged nod to the dance genre, Sudbin centred his recital on varying states of mood and mind. With it, he pondered on life, with its joys and toils, and mortality. An entire half of Franz Liszt’s music encapsulated this viewpoint.

Opening with Funerailles (from the cycle of Poetic And Religious Harmonies), its tolling bells were deliberately oppressive rather than exultant. Through this arose an air of nobility, representing his downtrodden Hungarian kin and their call to arms. The hair-raising episode of stampeding octaves was judged to perfection, which was later echoed by the Tenth Transcendental Study in F minor that closed the set.

In between both works was pure poetry, flowing lyricism in Petrarch’s Sonnet No.104 which decried Pace non trovo (I Find No Peace), and the ever-expanding chords of Harmonies du soir (Evening Harmonies) which reassured all was well in the world. The audience’s insistence of applauding between each piece must have distracted, interrupting Sudbin’s train of thought for the beginning of the closing etude in order to take a bow. A minor memory lapse was an unfortunate result.

There were thankfully no such intrusions in the second half, which began with a portrayal of grief in two minor key Scarlatti Sonatas – beautifully realised - and Sudbin’s own transcription of the Lacrimosa from Mozart’s Requiem. In the latter, he explored harmonies and resonances more far-ranging than Liszt himself.

The final part of the recital was devoted to the pleasurable state of ecstasy. Debussy’s L’Isle Joyeuse delighted in series of trills and rhythmic thrills, exhibiting an innocent happiness with a rapturous tumble to the bottom of the keyboard. Quite different was Scriabin’s Fifth Sonata, sometimes called “The Poem of Ecstasy”, for its fulminant, carnal outbursts and flame-throwing to the highest registers.

Sudbin possessed the requisite technique and rapier-quick reflexes to make both pieces work. Comparisons with the legacies of Richter and Horowitz are not out of place here. Three encores, by Scriabin, Scarlatti and Sudbin’s own tongue-in-cheek and uproariously vulgar conflation of Chopin’s Minute Waltz (by way of Hungarian show-boater György Cziffra and Ravel’s La Valse) had the audience in stitches.

The reaction of amazement and sometimes disbelief is one regularly encountered in this festival over the last two decades. Long may that continue.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2013)

LISZT/SAINT-SAENS/RAVEL

YEVGENY SUDBIN, Piano

BIS SACD-1828 / *****

The London-based Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin’s latest recital disc is inspired by Liszt and Lisztian technique. His choice of the Hungarian-born super-virtuoso’s solo music is well-balanced, juxtaposing the cerebral, technical with the lyrical. The imposing Funerailles (from Harmonies poetiques et religieuses) strides with the weight of the world on his shoulders, the tragic and the heroic realising just the right degree of gravitas. Two Transcendental Studies, No.10 in F minor (Allegro agitato molto) and Harmonies du soir (Evening Harmonies), all dextrous fingers and fists, find the perfect foil in the three Petrarch Sonnets from the Italian book of Years of Pilgrimage.

Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, three essays that evoke expressionist and nightmarish visions, was derived from the same dare-devilry that inhabited Liszt’s outlandish sense of aesthetics. Sudbin gives an incisive and mercurial account that does not draw attention to its inherent virtuosity, yet without stinting on the element of fantasy. On the same page is the Liszt transcription of Saint-Saëns’s Danse Macabre, which gets a more nuanced and whimsical reading compared with Behzod Abduraimov or Yuja Wang, just to name two young guns who have also recorded this warhorse recently. For some stupendous pianism, look no further.   

EMIL GILELS Early Recordings (1937-1954)

Naxos Historical 8.112051 / *****

The Ukraine-born pianist Emil Gilels (1916-1985) was well respected for his Beethoven sonata and concerto recordings on Deutsche Grammophon and EMI Classics respectively, which are among the best in the catalogue. From the pensive leonine figure with a rush of red hair, this collection of Soviet era recordings reveals a peerless interpreter of Russian piano music, comparable with his close contemporary the better-known Sviatoslav Richter.

Of major interest are the three sonatas recorded in the early 1950s. Nikolai Medtner’s single movement Sonata in G minor (Op.22) unleashes the same Slavic passion and temperament to be found in better-known Rachmaninov. Glazunov’s Second Sonata combines Tchaikovskyan lyricism with scintillation and academism, while Prokofiev’s coruscating Second Sonata is a virtuoso warhorse from his early period.

The latter is mastered from 78 rpm discs but the sound mastered by Ward Marston is quite excellent. No less vivid are the 1940s takes of Rachmaninov (a prelude, étude-tableau and song transcription each) and two encores: Tchaikovsky’s sunny Song Without Words (Op.2 No.3) and Prokofiev’s droll March from The Love For Three Oranges. Gilels, the young firebrand whose visceral energy later matured to encompass cerebral qualities, was one of the greats.   

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, August 2012)

RACHMANINOV Symphony No.3

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini 

YEVGENY SUDBIN, Piano

Singapore Symphony / SHUI LAN

BIS SACD-1988 / ****1/2

This is a rather obvious coupling, of two late Rachmaninov works (his Opus 43 and 44), but one strangely never previously attempted on disc. The Paganini Rhapsody, effectively his fifth piano concerto, is well trodden territory but young Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin gives a splendid account, equal to the best in the catalogue. His lightning fast reflexes are put to the test in the mercurial passages, and the requisite element of barnstorming is achieved without trivialising the music. In the famous 18^th Variation, he attempts to put a stamp on it by slowing down the tempi, and why not? A little sentimentality (and Rachmaninov is full of this) should not be considered misplaced.

The Third Symphony is less popular than the Second, but its relative compactness may be seen as an advantage. The hallmark aching nostalgia is still there, but this reading does not have the sense of wallowing that characterised SSO’s recording of the Second Symphony. The second movement is particularly well brought out, telescoping melancholy and the hyperactive central march into a trenchant and coherent whole. Rachmaninov’s hasty conclusion to the finale may be a downer but the orchestra makes the best of it to end on a high. Could recordings of the First Symphony and Symphonic Dances from the SSO be next?  

LIEBESFREUD. LIEBESLEID

Homage to Fritz Kreisler

Deutsche Gammophon 477 9942 (2CDs) / *****

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the death of great Viennese violinist Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962), whose many delicious original short pieces and transcriptions are the joy of violinists and audiences alike. In 1935, a scandal erupted when it was announced that works by the old masters “unearthed” by him were in fact his own compositions. A number of these, originally attributed to Pugnani (Prelude And Allegro), Martini (Andantino), Couperin (La Precieuse) and Francoeur (Sicilienne And Rigaudon), appear on this budget-priced tribute. Although much his music harked back to antique traditions, Kreisler’s unaccompanied Recitative and Scherzo-Caprice, and its play on dissonance, belonged remotely to the 20^th century.

Deutsche Grammophon’s vast back catalogue ensures that performances by the legendary Ruggiero Ricci (with 14 tracks, the most) and the late Christian Ferras from the 1960s are not forgotten. Even Jascha Heifetz and David Oistrakh get a look in, in very decent 1940s monoaural sound. Six tracks by Kreisler himself, dating back a century, reveal him to be a relaxed player with a natural way that comes as easily as breathing. Never mind the hiss, crackle and pop from the old shellacs.

Shlomo Mintz weighs in with 9 tracks, mostly transcriptions. There are three recordings each of Liebesleid (Love’s Sorrow) and Schön Rosmarin, favourite old Viennese waltzes, by Anne-Sophie Mutter, Ricci and Kreisler himself. In their hallowed company, who are we to complain?

SSO Concert: Rhapsody / Review

RHAPSODY 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall 

Friday (5 August 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 August 2011 with the title "Pianist Sudbin in smooth control".

As orchestral concerts go, this was one which may be described, in football parlance, as a game of two halves. The first was of Russian familiar favourites while the second featured a totally obscure symphony never previously performed here.

Prokofiev’s First Symphony, or the Classical Symphony, opened accounts with a slickly coiffed reading with not a hair out of place. The pace adopted for the outer movements was swift but not driven, with the slow movement’s singing strings gliding over its rhythmic accompaniment as perfect contrast. This is the polish that one has come to expect from SSO under music director Shui Lan in standard repertoire.

It is not often that a guest soloist appears twice within a calendar year, but the young Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin has returned. There is good reason, as he has just recorded Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the orchestra for a forthcoming release on the BIS label.

As in previous outings, his consistency and smooth control in this virtuoso warhorse was a delight. The variations unfolded with great ease, like a seasoned storyteller spinning a yarn. In case one wondered if this was merely clockwork efficiency, there were also genuine touches of individuality from the pianist.

This included a lingering moment, almost amounting to a pause, in the famous 18th Variation just before the glorious entry of the strings, for dramatic effect. After romping home in the concerto, his two encores – both Préludes by Rachmaninov (in G major and G minor) – sent the audience rushing out to buy his CD recordings.

Most of the house remained to hear the Singapore premiere of Hungarian Romantic (left) Karl Goldmark’s Second Symphony in E flat major. Its inclusion has to do with the fact that the orchestra had earlier recorded his far better known Rustic Wedding Symphony, and this was to be its companion on disc.

A pleasant if not totally memorable work would be a fair way to describe it. Its Germanic influences meant that one felt the guiding hand of Schumann and faint snatches of Brahms in the mix. It was the Mendelssohnian scherzo of the third movement that made one sit up. Its fairy-light elfin dance which gave way to a Victorian trumpet solo – full of churchy overtones and marvellously played – was worth the price of entry. One would probably not hear it again for another hundred years.

Watch SSO and Sudbin in the Rach Pag:

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, January 2011)

HAYDN Piano Sonatas
YEVGENY SUDBIN, Piano
BIS SACD-1788

*****

It is gratifying to note that more young pianists are taking on the challenge of playing Haydn’s keyboard Sonatas. While not possessing Mozart’s utter charm or Beethoven’s fist-shaking passion, the secret is in bringing out Haydn’s wit and wry humour. Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin’s readings are never dry or scholarly, but always alive to Haydn’s turns of phrases, dynamic and harmonic surprises. He liberally sprinkles on his own ornamentations whenever appropriate, never sounding unidiomatic or obtrusive. Aided by lush piano sound, he turns the three unassuming essays exercises into little epics.

He also includes the pensive Andante and Variations, possibly Haydn’s greatest single movement for piano and the chirpy Fantasia in C major, allied to the quirky finale of Sonata No.60 in C major. As an encore, Larking With Haydn, Sudbin’s own transcription of the finale of Haydn’s Lark Quartet takes flight, capping an enjoyable outing with classical music’s most underrated genius.

DON’T MISS:
YEVGENY SUDBIN performing
SCRIABIN’s Piano Concerto
with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra
conducted by KRISTJAN JÄRVI
Esplanade Concert Hall
Friday, 28 January 2011, 7.30pm
Tickets available at SISTIC