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2023-08-29 09:13:00
Salzburg Festival (1) - Volodos: Mompou, Liszt, and Scriabin, 18 August 2023
Grosser Saal, MozarteumMompou: Musica callada, nos 1, 2, 27, 24, 25, 11, 15, 22, 16, 6, 21, 28 Liszt: Ballade no.2 in B minor, S 171Scriabin: Études in F-sharp minor, op.8 no.2; in B-flat minor, op.8 no.11; Préludes in E-flat minor, op.11 no.14; in B major, op.16 no.1; in E-flat minor, op.16 no.4; in B major, op.22 no.3; in B-flat minor, op.31 no.1; Deux Poèmes, op.63; En rêvant, op.71 no.2; Flammes sombres, op.73 no.2; Piano Sonata no.10, op.70; Vers la flamme, op.72Image: © SF/Marco BorrelliOpportunities are rare to hear the music of Federico Mompou, and from a pianist of the stature of Arcadi Volodos rarer still. My friend and colleague Erik Levi, who also wrote the excellent English-language programme essay for this recital, described Mompou to me as ‘Webern meets Satie’: a good and intriguing starting point. In this selection of twelve pieces from the twenty-eight that make up Musica callada (1959-67), […]
2022-03-17 05:28:00
[…] quite that same dynamic power, but there are so many lovely touches, particularly in modulations and transitions where he brings out Brahms cleverness in composition. Christophe Sirodeau's playing does not sound quite as smooth and refined as Lewis's; indeed, there are moments that seem almost a little clunky. But somehow the main impression is one of sighing beauty, the feeling that the whole surely is greater than the sum of the parts. Finally, in Arcadi Volodos’s 2017 recording of these late works, I hear a slowish but wonderfully shaded account that draws me in, hinting at mysteries to be revealed and thoughts not quite expressed. Or take Opus 118 number 1. Again, Lewis does a good job in all respects. But Lupu starts with an introductory figure that swoops through the air, taking us on an audio roller coaster where every note is an adventure: we must keep listening to […]
2022-02-21 14:50:04
Handel, 2022
[…] family, on February 22nd of 1890; then three day later is the anniversary of another Brit, this time a “real” one but also Jewish, Dame Myra Hess. Nikita Magaloff, of Russian-Georgian descent who spent much of his life in Switzerland, was born in Saint-Petersburg on February 21st of 1912. Lazar Berman, another Russian (also Jewish), was born on the 26th the month in 1930 in Leningrad (now St.-Petersburg) and, finally, yet another Russian-born pianist, Arcadi Volodos (no, this one is not Jewish) was born on February 24th of 1972, also in Leningrad; these days Volodos lives in Spain. None of these pianists were very interested in the music of Handel, the only example we could find of one of them playing his music is an old, scratchy but interesting recording made in 1937 by the famous Hungarian violinist Joseph Szigeti who was accompanied by Nikita Magaloff. It is Handel’s Violin […]
2022-01-03 16:49:28
[…] very special pianistic date, January 5th, the birthday of not one but three exceptional pianists, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli in 1920, Alfred Brendel in 1931, and Maurizio Pollini in 1942. Pollini and Brendel had a very broad repertoire, Michelangeli – a more focused one, but none of them were big on Scriabin. So instead of playing his work by one of our birthday celebrants we present Scriabin’s Piano Sonata no 7 in an interpretation by Arcadi Volodos (here). The sonata was composed in 1911, close to the end of Scriabin’s short life (he died in 1915, aged 43, of blood poisoning from a carbuncle on his upper lip). It has a subtitle, White Mass, given by the composer himself. The sonata is highly chromatic, almost atonal. Who knows where this development would’ve lead the composer if Scriabin had lived another 20–30 years. As for the performer, Arcadi Volodos, he is a […]
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