MUSICAL MAGIC / ALIM BEISEMBAYEV Piano Recital / Review

 

MUSICAL MAGIC 

ALIM BEISEMBAYEV Piano Recital 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Friday (21 June 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 June 2024 with the title "Pianist Alim Beisembayev plays with sparkle and musicality".

International piano competitions churn out first prize-winners by the bucket-load every year, and it takes a rather special young musician to stand out from the crowd. The most recent first prize-winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition, 26-year-old Alim Beisembayev from Kazakhstan who won in 2021 has exactly that X-factor. 

The Impromptus of Franz Schubert are often played to death by bored students in exams, but in Beisembayev’s hands, they sparkled like gems. He chose the more demanding set of four from Op.142, and one was immediately struck by an innate sense of poetry and luscious layered sound. 

Exercises they are not, he reminded the listener time and again. The hymn-like Impromptu No.2 with its contrasted flowing central section, and the theme with tricky variations of Impromptu No.3 were all sensitively shaped. In the more technical Hungarian-flavoured Impromptu No.4, its vital element of rhythmic dance came to the fore. 

For Claude Debussy’s Second Book of Images, which is less often heard, Beisembayev’s deft use of pedalling ensured that the bell sonorities of Cloches a travers les feuilles (Bells Through The Leaves) rang with utmost clarity amid accompanying background rustles. 

In Et la lune descend sur temple le qui fut (And the Moon Sets Over the Temple That Was), the spectral mysteries of the Orient were vividly evoked. Poissons d’or (Gold Fish) may have been inspired by Japanese prints, but the shimmering hues were not seen through indoor fishbowls but the vastness of an ocean with high surging waves. 

The height of disrespect.
Some boomer uncle checking his social media.
The very definition of pearls before swine.

And who was not waiting for Frederic Chopin’s 12 Etudes from Op.25? Any disappointment caused by these delicious finger-twisters being expunged from Korean pianist Yunchan Lim’s recital on 28 June was more than made up by Beisembayev’s memorable account. 

For him, these studies were no longer technical exercises calculated to excite and thrill, but rather exquisite miniature tone poems. There is not a single unmusical bone in his body. When faced with his interpretations, one does not exclaim “how difficult this is” but rather “how beautiful it all sounds”. 

The wind-caressed arpeggios in A flat major (Etude No.1), rapid syncopations in A minor (No.3), treacherous thirds in G sharp minor (No.6) and stampeding octaves in B minor (No.10) all become mere means to a musical end. Through these, mellifluous voices emerge, not least in the lyrical central section of the “Wrong Note” Etude No.5 in E minor. 

The tempestuous “Winter Wind” (No.11) and storm-tossed “Ocean” (No.12) were impressive in generating volume, but most heartrending of all was the simple cello-like melody of the C sharp Etude (No.7) being transformed into a tragedy of epic proportions. 

Beisembayev’s superb encores of Serge Rachmaninov’s Prelude in G major (Op.32 No.5) and Franz Liszt’s Transcendental Etude No.10 in F minor were in the same spirit: an ultimate triumph of musicality over facility.

ALIM BEISEMBAYEV 

was presented by MW Events.