PRELUDE TO GREATNESS: A PIANO PRODIGY'S SINGAPORE DEBUT / ELISEY MYSIN Piano Recital / Review

 

PRELUDE TO GREATNESS: 

A PIANO PRODIGY’S SINGAPORE DEBUT 

ELISEY MYSIN Piano Recital 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Sunday (23 February 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 25 February 2025 with the title "Russian teen piano prodigy makes Singapore debut".

Piano prodigies have existed as long as piano recitals, from the exploited and abused Josef Hofmann and Ruth Slenczynska of ages past, the more recent wonders of Evgeny Kissin and Lang Lang to Singapore’s own Mikkel Meyer Lee and Toby Tan. Following Alexander Malofeev’s much-hailed Singapore debut in 2019 came yet another Russian phenom, the 15-year-old Elisey Mysin. 

Photo: Finger Waltz Music

Already known as a YouTube sensation, his recital opened with early works from two great masters. Ludwig van Beethoven’s first Sonata in F minor (Op.2 No.1) could have been a display of youthful impetuosity, but Mysin took a far more measured approach. 

Lightness and crispness of articulation ruled, as did a Mozartean tenderness of feeling in the slow movement which touched the heart. While the third movement’s Minuet hid a veiled threat, it was the furious finale where passions were finally let loose. So far, so good. 

The many short sections that make up Robert Schumann’s Papillons (Op.2) can sound disjointed and incoherent but Mysin was able to bring out their inner beauty. Stringing them together like pearls in a necklace, the final outcome was greater than the sum of the individual parts. 

Widely contrasting music from Franz Liszt’s Annees de Pelerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) cycle concluded the first half. His control of keyboard tone was admirable in The Bells of Geneva (from the Swiss album), where echoes of gentle pealing were eventually built up to an epic climax. 

This was in many ways preferable to the predictable barnstorming that inevitably takes place in the Tarantella from Venezie e Napoli (Venice and Naples), but his enviable technique in repeated notes and filigreed cadenzas imperiously held sway. 

Photo: Finger Waltz Music

The afternoon’s best performance came in a rare reading of Sergei Prokofiev’s Sonata No.5 in C major (Op.38). A far cry from the violence and brutality of his War Sonatas (Nos.6 through 8), the Mozartean clarity in the outer movements was balanced by the central movement’s grotesque sense of wit and irony. His finely honed interpretation scored in all the right spots. 

Photo: Finger Waltz Music

The concert suite from Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker by Russian pianist-conductor Mikhail Pletnev does not exactly duplicate the items from the popular Nutcracker Suite. Mysin’s view paid more attention to the orchestral textures of the pieces, thus being more successful in the slower movements such as the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Intermezzo. 

Photo: Finger Waltz Music

Infamously fraught with over-the-top acrobatic high jinks, the romping Russian and Chinese Dances had both hits and misses. Mysin had probably been distracted by an errant concertgoer’s handphone which had a ringtone that tried to compete. The gloriously lyrical Andante maestoso brought the recital to a heady close. 

Photo: Finger Waltz Music

The encores of Frederic Chopin’s Mazurka in G minor (Op.24 No.1) and Nocturne in E major (Op.62 No.2) exhibited luscious tone and subtle rubato to equal degree. These aptly demonstrated that for him, musical qualities always trumped technical ones.