BORIS GILTBURG Piano Recital / 23rd Singapore International Piano Festival / Review

BORIS GILTBURG Piano Recital

23^rd Singapore International Piano Festival

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday (25 June 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 June 2016 with the title "Russian music in all its elegance and violence".

For the third evening of the Singapore International Piano Festival, Russia-born pianist Boris Giltburg offered an all-Russian programme. Needless to say, this former 1^st Prizewinner of the Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition (2013) had the requisite chops and technique for this repertoire.

What he chose to do with his uncommon abilities was what made his brand of virtuosity vital and relevant. In Rachmaninov's earlier set of Études-Tableaux (Op.33), he seemed to live out the festival's overall theme of “Kaleidoscope” in its eight varied pieces. A punchy march, full of bluster and swagger rowdily opened the proceedings.

Rachmaninov's obsession with bell sounds came to the fore in no less than four numbers, each imbued with different qualities. There were resounding echoes (in No.2), gentle tinkles (No.4), festive pealing (No.6) and finally the carillons of victory (No.8). The defining piece was No.3, where gloomy chords in C minor eventually made way for a transcendent theme in C major, later quoted in the slow movement of his Fourth Piano Concerto.

Boris Giltburg speaks to the audience about his
transcription of Shostakovich's String Quartet No.8

The most intriguing item of Giltburg's recital was his own transcription of Shostakovich's Eighth String Quartet. He made it clear on the outset that string textures were not to be simulated, but worked on the development of thematic material, namely his 4-note motto theme (D-E flat-C-B which spelt his initials in German) that appears in different guises.

Far from being monochromatic, the sombreness of its beginning soon bristled angrily in the percussive 2^nd movement before waltzing away in manic-fashion (3^rd movement) and being stopped cold with explosive bursts (4^th movement). Along the way, quotations from his First Symphony, Second Piano Trio, First Cello Concerto and opera Lady Macbeth Of Msentsk indicated this was a musical autobiography of sorts. Giltburg's riveting performance caught its anarchic spirit perfectly.

Two sonatas followed after the intermission. Scriabin's Fourth Sonata was given a flighty account, floating with gossamer lightness in the slow introduction before taking off like the wind in the frenetic Prestissimo Volando conclusion. Unlike Icarus who fell to earth, Giltburg actually made it to the sun in spectacular aplomb.

Just as incendiary was his view to Prokofiev's Eighth Sonata, the third chapter of his “War Trilogy”, and arguably the best. The surprising lyricism of its first page was merely a premonition of the escalating cataclysm to come. Giltburg mustered these contrasts expertly, making each transition to outright conflict starkly etched and totally believable.

Similarly, the gentle balletic minuet of the 2^nd movement became fodder to the lead-spitting finale, where its unceasing machine-gun rattle was only matched by Giltburg's no holds barred manoeuvres to its thrilling and devastating end.

The tumultuous applause was reciprocated with three encores, two Rachmaninov charmers (transcriptions of Kreisler's Liebesleid and Franz Behr's Lachtaubchen, the latter also known as Polka De V.R.) sandwiching Prokofiev's coruscating Suggestion Diabolique. In a nutshell, elegance and violence formed the tandem that defined Russian piano music.  

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2014)

PROKOFIEV The War Sonatas

BORIS GILTBURG, Piano

Orchid Classics 100023 / *****

The three greatest piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) were composed during the years of the Second World War, when the Soviet Union waged a life-and-death struggle against Nazi Germany at a cost of over 20 million lives. The Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Sonatas or “War Sonatas” (Op.82 to 84) were written at the same time, and share the common qualities of being brutally dissonant and percussive but tempered with a paradoxical lyricism and sentimentality. These diametrically opposites become clear when one considers that even temporary relief from the ever-looming spectre of death becomes a valued luxury.

Mortality and beauty sit uneasily in these masterpieces. The Sixth Sonata has a pulverising belligerence but its third movement is a slow waltz. The compact Seventh Sonata juxtaposes tolling bells with precipitous machine-gun fire, the toccata-like finale being its most famous three minutes. The Eighth Sonata is the longest and most subtle, with languorous bittersweet emotions being swept away by ruthless and unyielding hard reality. Ironically, all three sonatas were written in the major keys. Russia-born Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg, 1^st prize-winner of the 2013 Queen Elizabeth International Piano Competition, possessing a steel-clad technique allied with razor-keen intellect (he also penned the very perceptive sleeve notes), is the ideal exponent of this trilogy of doom.

BOOK IT:

BORIS GILTBURG playing 

Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.1

with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

conducted by Neeme Järvi

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday, 12 April 2014 at 7.30 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC

DOHNANYI Piano Quintets

Schubert Ensemble of London

Helios 55412 / ****1/2

Ernö Dohnanyi (1877-1960) was the great Hungarian Romantic at an age when his contemporaries Bartok and Kodaly were experimenting with dissonance and use of folk music in works of a more contemporary vein. His idioms lay in the Austro-Germanic past, best illustrated in his two piano quintets.

The better-known First Quintet in C minor (1895), a teenage effort, could have come from the quill of Brahms himself, who delighted in infusing his music with a Magyar flavour and vibe. The slow movement’s languorous cello melody, reminiscent of Brahms’s Third Piano Quartet, provides the work’s most memorable minutes.

        

The Second Quintet in E flat minor (1914) is just as conservative and accessible, but with darker and more introspective shades. British pianist William Howard and his colleagues of the Schubert Ensemble give lively and beautifully detailed performances. A substantial filler is the five-movement Serenade for string trio, which makes for engaging listening. All this represents extremely good value at a budget price.

WINNERS OF QUEEN ELISABETH INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION 2013 NAMED

The winners of the 2013 Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition in Brussels, Belgium have been named. The top six prizes go to:

1. Boris Giltburg (Israel)
2. Remi Geniet (France)
3. Mateusz Borowiak (Poland)
4. Stanislav Khrystenko (Ukraine)
5. Zhang Zuo (China)
6. Andrew Tyson (USA)

The unplaced laureates cum finalists are (in alphabetical order):

Tatiana Chernichka (Russia)
David Fung (Australia)
Roope Gröndahl (Finland)
Sean Kennard (USA)
Sang-Young Kim (South Korea)
Yuntian Liu (China)

The good news is that BORIS GILTBURG gets to play a solo recitals in Hong Kong and Singapore! The tentative dates are as follows:

Saturday 19 October (7.30 pm), Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall

  part of The Joy of Music Festival

Sunday 20 October (7 pm), Singapore Conference Hall

  part of the International Laureate Series