VADYM KHOLODENKO Piano Recital / Review

 

VADYM KHOLODENKO Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

Thursday (12 June 2025)

This review was first published in Bachtrack.com on 16 January 2025 with the title "Vadym Kholodenko mesmerises and thrills in Singapore recital".

Interesting factoid: No non-Asian pianist has been awarded gold at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition since Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko’s triumph in 2013. In artistic climates that regularly prizes consensus and conformity, Kholodenko strikes out as an original, being neither a stereotypical prizewinner nor common garden Russian-schooled virtuoso. He is an artist of broad and catholic tastes with the requisite technique to match this vision, reflected by unusual recital programming choices.

Whoever imagined opening a recital with music by the Elizabethan composer William Byrd (1540-1623)? Pianos did not exist in the day, with keyboardists plying their art on virginals, the delicate forerunner of harpsichords. On a modern grand piano, works like Byrd’s First Pavan and Galliard are no longer limited by restricting registers, instead finding new voices of ringing resonance. In John Come Kiss Me Now, its 16 variations gradually built up from simple ornamentations to thrilling runs on both hands, sonorous effects not encountered during the Renaissance.

Travelling ahead 400 years in time, sepia tones diverged into the spectral colours of recently-departed Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s 6-minute long Ballade, written in 2005 for Emanuel Ax. Whether the work is tonal or atonal became immaterial, instead its myriad shades were laid out rainbow-like over a steady unerring pulse in a post-Scriabin fantasy soundscape. An upward sweep, and a glissando down the keyboard completed its bracing journey.

Beethoven’s Sonata in G major (Op.31 No.1) is not as celebrated as its nicknamed partners from the same Opus, the Tempest (No.2) and the Hunt (No.3). It ought to be better known, with Kholodenko’s account tapping into a wellspring of humour. The opening movement’s deliberate desynchronisation of chords by both hands gave the effect of repeated hiccoughing, which he ploughed into with tongue firmly in cheek. 

In the central Adagio grazioso, an aria was sung over a simple left hand triplet accompaniment, with each hand getting more florid and seemingly improvisatory by the minute. The Rondo relived the previous sonata’s (Op.28, the Pastoral) rustic drones, almost going overboard with its freewheeling runs before a knowing reprise of the first movement’s offbeat chords. Maybe this should be called the Hiccup Sonata.

The recital’s second half was devoted wholly to Franz Liszt. Kholodenko the consummate Lisztian was revealed at the Cliburn, programming eleven of the Transcendental Etudes in his semifinal recital some nine years before Yunchan Lim’s much feted feat. Kholodenko was there first. In Three Concert Etudes (S.144), technical sleight-of-hand took a backseat to poetic sensibilities, as Il lamento began to sound like an operatic aria, while the right hand runs in La leggierezza were as smooth as silk. The best-known number, Un sospiro, was simply breathtaking.

How often does one hear the three companions to the First Valse oubliée? Befitting Liszt’s late music from the 1880s, the music gets increasingly skittish, chromatic and ambiguous in tonality. Kholodenko was the perfect guide into this sinister salon, regarding surface charm and cloaked malice as equals, before arriving at the final “forgotten” waltz’s unresolved cadence. Without waiting for applause, he segued into the earlier and more innocent Valse-Impromptu, which was all glitter and gaiety. The recital proper closed with the terrifying Scherzo und Marsch, with Liszt in true Mephistophelean form, and Kholodenko reliving Horowitz’s inexorable electrifying voltage.

Returning to the ballroom his first encore was Poulenc’s L’embarquement pour Cythère (Valse-Musette, originally for two pianos) in Kholodenko’s very busy and dizzying insouciant transcription on two hands. Schumann’s long-breathed Der Dichter spricht (The Poet Speaks) from Kinderszenen made for the perfect coda.

The review as published on Bachtrack.com:

Vadym Kholodenko mesmerises and thrills in Singapore recital | Bachtrack

Photo: Pianomaniac

                              Star Rating: *****

Photography by Ung Ruey Loon

VADYM KHOLODENKO 

was presented by

Altenburg Arts

Post-concert photos:

With the folks at Altenburg Arts.

With fellow concert pianist Natalie Ng.

Reminiscences of Fort Worth, TX 2013.

A PIANO RECITAL NOT TO MISS: VADYM KHOLODENKO on 12 June 2025

Here is another piano recital not to miss. Ukrainian pianist VADYM KHOLODENKO, 1st prize-winner of the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, makes a welcome return to Singapore for a recital that displays his wide-ranging and catholic tastes. Everything he plays is compelling through his consummate musicianship and force of personality.

His programme:

WILLIAM BYRD First Pavan and Galliard

WILLIAM BYRD John Come Kiss Me Now

KAIJA SAARIAHO Ballade

BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No.17 

   in G major, Op.31 No.1

LISZT Three Concert Etudes

  Il Lamento - La Leggierezza - Un Sospiro

LISZT Four Valses Oubliees

LISZT Valse-Impromptu

LISZT Scherzo & March

Victoria Concert Hall

Thursday, 12 June 2025 at 8 pm

Tickets available at:

Piano Recital by Vadym Kholodenko

Now watch this video:

Vadym Kholodenko's piano recital 

is presented by Altenburg Arts.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, May 2015)

VADYM KHOLODENKO

PLAYS RACHMANINOFF & MEDTNER

Delos 3567 / *****

The young Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko was awarded the coveted 1^st Prize at the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. This all-Russian recital disc reveals him at his persuasive best, not so much as a barnstorming virtuoso but a thoughtful and sensitive interpreter. Nikolai Medtner's Winter Wind Sonata in E minor (Op.25 No.2) is a dense and contrapuntally complex single movement lasting some 30 minutes, but listen to how he elucidates its simple main theme, adds building blocks and develops a monumental edifice upon its foundations. While not the easiest work to sit through, he makes a strong case as he leads the listener through its seemingly knotty vistas to ultimately a palpable sense of musical enlightenment.

The balance of the recital comes like a sweet dessert with nine of Rachmaninov's stylish transcriptions of popular melodies. There is utter clarity in the articulation of J.S.Bach's Partita No.3 in three movements and Schubert's lilting Wohin? from Die Schöne Müllerin. Kholodenko skilfully negotiates the hairpin turns of Mendelssohn's Scherzo (from A Midsummer Night's Dream), one of the most hair-raising transcriptions ever devised. The Slavic brooding of Tchaikovsky's Lullaby (Op.16 No.1) is contrasted with the gaiety of Rachmaninov's Polka de V.R. (based on a Lehar tune his father once doodled on) and Kreisler's Liebesleid and Liebesfreud. This is playing of an exulted kind, where true musicality triumphs over mere technical know how. 

BOOK IT:

VADYM KHOLODENKO 
DESTINATION SINGAPORE

Piano Recital

Esplanade Concert Hall

Sunday, 7 June 2015 at 7.30 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC

THE RASCAL AND THE SPARROW

POULENC MEETS PIAF

ANTONIO POMPA-BALDI, Piano

Steinway & Sons 30015 / *****

In 1959, the French composer Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) composed the last of his 15 Improvisations for piano. He titled it Hommage a Edith Piaf, a languorous waltz-song that indelibly captured the insouciant Parisian spirit of the famous diminutive chanteuse who was known as “The Sparrow”. It is not known whether Poulenc ever knew Edith Piaf (1915-1963) personally or even met her, but his admiration was obvious.

This collection of “songs without words” by Italian pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi brings together his transcriptions of 18 Poulenc's chansons with 10 “elaborations” by Sardinian pianist-composer Roberto Piana of songs immortalised by Piaf. Undoubtedly the best known is La vie en rose, with the famous left hand melody dressed up with playfully contrapuntal and ornate filigree from the right hand. Un grand amour is no less fine, and even cheekily quotes the Rose at its end.

Piana's art borders on the improvisatory, bringing a wealth of feeling and charm to numbers like Hymne l'Amour, Non, je ne regrette rien and Mon Dieu!, which sound truly delicious. Pompa-Baldi's treatment of songs like Le Chemins de l'Amour, Montparnasse, C and Le dernier Mazour are more straight-forward, combining sumptuous melodic lines with Poulenc's own piano accompaniment. Here is just over an hour of nostalgia and gaiety, beautifully realised.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, June 2014)

VADYM KHOLODENKO

Gold Medalist, 14^th Van Cliburn

International Piano Competition

Harmonia Mundi 907605 / ****1/2

In June last year, the Ukraine-born and Moscow-trained pianist Vadym Kholodenko was awarded 1^st Prize in the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. This live recording of selected preliminary and semi-final round performances demonstrates why his triumph was wholly deserving.

Although his version of Igor Stravinsky’s Three Movements From Petrushka was neither the fastest nor most accurate account in the competition, it came across as the most convincing because of the canny sense of pacing and choreographic grace. Instead of the all-too-common mad rush that passes for virtuosity, his magisterial control and narrative sweep made for a most gripping conception of the ballet’s earthy energy and neuroticism.

His audacity in programming eleven of Franz Liszt’s Twelve Transcendental Études was matched by his execution. The requisites of power, heft and endurance in Mazeppa, Wild Jagd and Étude No.10 (Allegro Agitato Molto) coexist happily with the sensitivity and finesse in Feux follets, Paysage and the rapturous Harmonies du soir. An earlier studio recording of Ricordanza was inserted to complete the set. This is what it takes to be pianistic world-beater.  

TAN DUN Concerto for Orchestra

Orchestral Theatre / Symphonic Poem

Hong Kong Philharmonic / TAN DUN

Naxos 8.570608 / ****1/2

Although the Chinese composer Tan Dun is universally known for his martial arts film scores (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), he remains a serious symphonist one who successfully marries the disparate worlds of Chinese music, theatre and culture with Western aesthetics. His Concerto for Orchestra (2012) was derived from his Four Secret Roads of Marco Polo commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic. Here Tan imagines the a geographical, musical and spiritual journey taken by the Venetian adventurer-explorer as he confronts the exotic East before arriving in the Forbidden City of Kublai Khan. The Asian-ness of his soundscapes is implied in its instrumental timbres and rhythms rather than the use of actual themes.

Orchestral Theatre (1990) was one of his earliest successes, a dramatic and atonal work that relives the shamanistic rituals in his native Hunan. The Symphonic Poem on Three Notes (2012) is a fantasy on the notes A-B natural-C (La-Si-Do), which sounds like the name of its dedicatee Placido Domingo, a gift for his 70^th birthday. Listen to this most accessible work first and then move onto the picaresque scenes of the Concerto before ending with the more abstract and mystical musings in Orchestral Theatre. Tan’s mastery of orchestral textures is enthralling and exhaustive in its use of tonal colours and occasional vocal effects, and the invigorating performances he brings out from the Hong Kong Philharmonic are exemplary.

WINNERS OF THE 14TH VAN CLIBURN INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION NAMED

After over two weeks of intense and gruelling competition, the winners of the 14th International Van Cliburn International Piano Competition held in Fort Worth, Texas have been named. They are:

1st Prize: VADYM KHOLODENKO (Ukraine)
2nd Prize: BEATRICE RANA (Italy)
3rd Prize: SEAN CHEN (USA)

Finalists:
FEI-FEI DONG (China)
NIKITA MNDOYANTS (Russia)
TOMOKI SAKATA (Japan) 

All smiles from the Top Three: (From L) Sean Chen, Beatrice Rana and Vadym Kholodenko.

Striking poses from the unplaced finalists: (From L) Fei-Fei Dong, Nikita Mndoyants and Tomoki Sakata. 

Photos courtesy of Fort Worth Star-Telegram.