Critic’s Notebook: Alexander Malofeev gives his recital debut in Vienna

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Sensationell: Ausnahmepianist Alexander Malofeev begeistert bei seinem Wiener Solodebüt

A piano recital to remember: Alexander Malofeev in his solo debut in Vienna

There was a very young, very blond man in front of the Steinway, sitting low, and bent like an adult in a soapbox racer. Did he saw the piano bench’s legs off? For his Vienna recital debut, Alexander Malofeev, the up-and-coming Russian piano star, chose one half of baroque music and one half of Russian late romantics. He started with Händel, the Suite in B-flat major: There was terrific energy in the last of the variation of the Aria and lovely contrast in the lyrical-tender Minuet. Attacca, Malofeev went right into the Purcell Ground in C minor and from there into Georg Muffat’s Passacaglia from his Apparatus musico-organisticus, giving this part the sense of being a grand suite. In all of this he was unfazed, unsentimental, providing long, structured passages rather than a string of merely beautiful moments. You could hear the structure – and it was beautiful to do so.

He allowed for applause before the twice-transcribed Bach Concerto BWV 593 (in any case too famous to have fitted snugly into that imaginary baroque suite) and almost seemed pleasantly surprised, amazed that he got any, never mind such a boisterousness round. The Vivaldi concerto for two violins, turned into a concerto for solo organ by Bach and then liberally-romantically transcribed to suit the piano by Samuil Feinberg, was a thundering, bell-tinkling affair, imposing and tender in turn, elaborate and ornate here, introverted and sober there. A grand crescendo thunderously reminded of the work’s intermittent origins on the organ. Grand stuff.

Only very minimally less impressive was the second half, beginning with Scriabin’s Prélude and Nocturne for left hand, op.9. Chopin-like, as early Scriabin is wont to be, and for once a Wittgenstein-unrelated work just for the left hand; apparently Scriabin wrote it for himself after a bout with tendinitis and/or wanting to brag in front of an audience. Then again, it’s a piece that’s surprisingly devoid of obvious braggadocio, more dreamy, if anything. Still impressive, though, especially since Scriabin doesn’t at all let the ‘one-hand-only’ thing limit hims to which range on the keyboard he writes for. Incidentally, Malofeev is no braggart himself, either. Nor, in a way, even a virtuoso who goes for the fireworks, even though his brilliant technique would surely allow him to do so.

The concluding Rachmaninov (the first two bits from the Morceaux de fantaisie, a transcription of “Lilacs” from his Twelve Songs op.21, and the B-flat minor Sonata) was full-throated but not violent. Most pleasingly, Malofeev never succumbs to romantic treacle and the Sonata suffered only from being boring because, hey, it’s Rachmaninov. Not that everyone in the hollering crowd felt the same way about good old Sergei, but the encores from Mikhail Pletnev’s Nutcracker Suite made up for it, for anyone who did. What a bloody extraordinary recital!

Photo © Manuel Chemineau

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