ALEXANDER MALOFEEV Piano Recital / Review

 

ALEXANDER MALOFEEV Piano Recital 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Wednesday (14 May 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 May 2025 with the title "Former child prodigy matures into nuanced adulthood".

There comes a point in time when a child prodigy ceases to be wunderkind, possibly dissipates into obscurity but hopefully morphs into an adult artist. 23-year old Russian pianist Alexander Malofeev, who last performed here as a teenager in 2019, has taken the latter route. While his previous recital was packed with typical virtuoso fodder, his most recent offering on a C.Bechstein grand was far more nuanced. 

Quite unusually, Franz Schubert’s Drei Klavierstucke (Three Piano Pieces, D.946), sometimes referred to as his posthumous Impromptus, opened the programme. Written in his final months in 1828, these were not published until forty years later. 

Malofeev found a wellspring of responses; restless agitation for the first piece, pure lyricism in the Lied-like centrepiece and a succession of syncopations in the last. Never for a moment did its pages sound like note-spinning, as every musical moment was made to count. 

Soviet era Russian composer Dmitry Kabalevsky’s Piano Sonata No.3 in F major (Op.46) is popular with youngsters hoping to flaunt their digital dexterity before moving on to more serious repertoire like Sergei Prokofiev’s sonatas. 

Malofeev however regarded this like the real thing, and not some throwaway virtuoso fluff. His genuine effort to make its rather thin material stand out was laudable, balancing well percussive exertions with lyrical insights and wry humour. Like the great Ukraine-born pianist Vladimir Horowitz before him, he made it sound like a real masterpiece. 

The recital’s second half highlighted more of Malofeev’s multi-faceted musicianship. Czech composer Leos Janacek’s four-movement suite In The Mists revealed introspective and melancholic sides. His mastery of its aching melodic lines and intriguing harmonies mined a wealth of feeling, the final subdued Presto movement being a true portent of tragedy. 

Without pausing for applause, he continued directly into the tolling bells of Franz Liszt’s Funerailles, which was the most appropriate and natural progression. Here was programming nous at its most canny. Instead of being bombarded with the usual barnstorming of rampaging octaves and chords, one was instead made to feel a genuine outpouring of grief. 

The same approach informed the recital’s final part, beginning with Alexander Scriabin’s Four Preludes (Op.22). These four exquisitely varied miniatures were delicately voiced, the fourth in B minor leading directly into the single-movement Fantasy (Op.28), also in the same key. 

Here was the lost art of preluding gloriously relived, the idea of preceding a major work with thematically or harmonically related shorter pieces. The Fantasy received a grandstanding performance. Like Scriabin’s mature works with a messianic complex, its soaring melodic line transcended thickets of dissonance to find an ultimate harmonic nirvana. 

Drawing loud cheers, Malofeev’s three encores were all Russian. Mikhail Glinka’s graceful Nocturne in F minor (La Separation) contrasted with the folksy charm of his Chopinesque Mazurka in C minor. In between was Prokofiev’s Toccata in D minor (Op.11), a flame-throwing performance that brought down the house.

All photography by Chen Haotian.

DENIS MATSUEV'S CONCERT / Denis Matsuev & Friends / Review

DENIS MATSUEV’S CONCERT

Capitol Theatre

Tuesday (21 November 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 November 2023 with the title "Pianist Denis Matsuev thrills packed hall with improvisatory flair and jazz detour".

 

Denis Matsuev is already well-known to most pianophiles. Awarded 1^st prize at the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 1998, the Russian pianist also served as jury chairman in its most recent edition in June this year. He last performed in Singapore in 2014 as soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra under Valery Gergiev.

 

Despite relative lack of publicity, Capitol Theatre was filled to the rafters for his 80-minute concert performed without intermission. Matsuev is well-known for his encores, so the first 45 minutes was a uninterrupted progression of "Bis", the popular German term for shorts performed after a main programme. 

 

Opening with Handel’s Aria and Variations, or “The Harmonious Blacksmith", he revealed an improvisatory approach to music. Pulling and stretching tempos at will, it seemed like a jazzman's take on the baroque piece, finally letting go as the variations got more rapid and increasingly florid. 

@ Pianomania

 

This was followed by the finale from Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata, a never-ending cycle of perpetual motion, its dynamo finding resolution with Schubert’s beautifully lyrical Impromptu in G flat major. As circus acts go, there was little to match Moritz Moszkowski’s La Jongleuse (The Juggler) with ever-widening arcs of tossing and spinning, where Matsuev obliged with sleights of hand and a winking charm.

 

In Chopin’s elegant Waltz in C sharp minor (Op.64 No.2), the tendency was to emphasise the grand manner and lay it on thick. This particularly characterised pieces from his homeland, as Tchaikovsky’s Autumn Song (October from The Seasons) was possessed by nostalgia which became breathtakingly full-blown in Rachmaninov’s popular Vocalise. He performed the unfussy Alan Richardson transcription also favoured by piano greats Emil Gilels and Evgeny Kissin.

 

Denis Matsuev addressed the audience
mostly in English although he did
say some Russian words at the end
@ Pianomania

Two Rachmaninov Preludes completed the classical segment, and one will not hear more full-blooded readings of the C sharp minor (Op.3 No.2), sometimes called Bells Of Moscow, and the martially-inspired G minor (Op.23 No.5). His penchant to thunder on the much-amplified C.Bechstein grand piano makes him Lang Lang’s biggest rival in the volume department.

 

Joined by bassist Andrei Ivanov and drummer Alexander Singer, Matsuev let down his hair and showed chops for serious jamming. Now unconstrained by the need to be correct and polite, the Matsuev jazz trio truly rocked in rude health. Their first offering was not an arrangement of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue but rather a free improvisation on themes from Gershwin, and not necessarily in the right sequence.

 

It was more like 10% Gershwin and 90% Matsuev and Gang, but the result was none the worse for it. His ability to improvise and run circles and pirouettes around motifs could only have been honed in smoky dives, doing so with a free-wheeling insouciance and substance-driven intensity. Spots for ad-libbing spots by both bassist and  drummer were also cheered on by the audience.

@ Pianomania

 

Matsuev’s own Ballade showed moments of reflection before rising to ecstatic throes, and the trio closed the evening with extended improvisations on three movements from Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt. One will never hear the rampaging In the Hall of the Mountain King the same way again.

@ Pianomania

All photos by Bechstein Music World unless underwise stated.