7 March: Alexander Romanovsky at Wigmore Hall

It started as a disastrous evening; for a 7:30pm concert I left Woking with my in-laws slightly after 5:30pm, thinking there would be plenty of time to arrive early and relax.   What we didn’t predict was the horrendous traffic - it was just solid from Putney through Chelsea, and we were unable to move for a long time.  We just sat in the car helplessly – there was nothing we could do.

John and I had talked about going to this concert, but he decided not to come in the end as we left it too late to buy good seats.  I, however, could not resist the temptation, knowing the programme included Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes and Rachmaninov’s Etudes-Tableaux; a dream-come-true for me!

But the traffic!  When we dashed in, we could hear the recital had just started.   Alexander was on Posthumous Variation I, the third piece.  As I fearer, we were not allowed in until the interval.  Fair enough, because of the nature of this work, there were no proper pauses between each variation.  Still the shock was huge – sitting on a bench, listening to this beautiful work being played behind the doors, I felt awful.

So I bought Alexander’s CD instead on which he recorded this work.  The Symphonic Etudes have a theme, 12 variations and 5 posthumous variations.  They are so beautiful – lyrical, melodic, poetic and full of colours.  Schumann didn’t instruct a specific sequence for the variations, though he refered to the opening theme as a Funeral March and to the finale as a Triumphal March.  Some pianists leave the posthumous variations out, but they are the ones that add depth and richness to this work.  Others cluster all of them together in the middle or at the very end.  I like Alexander’s approach, distributing them throughout the program.  My absolute favourite is Posthumous Variation V, it is indescribably beautiful.  Alexander put this variation just before the Finale.  The impact of placing this slow and dreaming piece just before the powerful Finale is tremendous.  I can highly recommend this CD!

Our evening turned around for the second half – Rachmaninov’s  Etudes-Tableaux.  What an awesome performance!  Alexander is definitely a brilliant Rach player.  He had this no nonsense approach and was quite serious, but so dynamic and diverse.  His powerful sounds could be almost metallic at times, though I must admit that he is exactly my type of pianist!  Extremely meticulous and mistake-free, you could completely depend on the quality of his presentation and delivery.  For No. 1. in C minor, he was so sharp and precise.  No. 5 in E flat minor, one of the best known pieces of all, was impressive.  When the beautiful melody moved onto left hand while right hand worked busily to accompany it, it climaxed – it was like massive amount of lively notes were jumping out of the piano and filled up the hall.  What power and concentration.  He is definitely one of the most dynamic performers I’ve come across, but he is ‘cool’ in every way, I mean in absolutely good way.  Completing those two huge works and he showed not even a single drop of sweat.  And he re-appeared on the stage for four encores!   What a bonus for all of us.  Two Chopin Mazurkas, short but excellently presented, followed by Scriabin Etude Op8 No 12. Yes another Etude, but don’t I adore this piece.  The recital was concluded by Debussy’s Clair de Lune.  In the end, Eldred and I had fabulous time.