28-year-old Jan Lisiecki can definitely be called a young musician. But amongst pianists who’ve recently made their recital debuts at Carnegie Hall, he’s something of an elder statesman.
Last month, Yunchan Lim, still a teen at the time, confidently faced the challenges of Chopin’s etudes. On Tuesday, 22-year-old Alexander Malofeev was an unabashed guide through the richness of Russian late romanticism and its afterglows.
Both Lim and Malofeev performed at the Carnegie for the primary time, but Lisiecki has been performing there with orchestras sporadically since 2016. While the size of the major hall may be intimidating for a solo recital with nearly 3,000 people watching, March 13 gave the look of a quiet home from the beginning.
The second a part of Lisiecki’s program was dedicated to Chopin’s 24 Preludes (Op. 28), while before the break there was an assortment of other short pieces of this genre: a form of prelude built from preludes. It was a clever mixture of chestnuts and rarities. Lisiecki combined easily recognizable pieces like Bach’s Prelude in C (the opening of “The Well-Tempered Harpsichord”) and Rachmaninov’s C sharp minor (Op. 3, No. 2) with much less common selections from the collections of preludes by Szymanowski, Messiaen and Górecki.
Lisiecki plays with delicate deliberation, aristocratic reserve and a touch tending to the shadow without losing the core of clarity. He clearly enjoys delicate playing, with the sensitive effects of distant bells and lunar drizzle in Messiaen’s “La Colombe” and “Le Nombre Léger” and the sotto voce whispers in Op. 28, No. 15.
His Chopin recordings studies AND night they provide charming, generally introverted, polished and even dreamy versions of those works. However, in an interview given after the discharge of the nocturnes, Lisiecki said that the album’s slow tempos wouldn’t be suitable for concert events.
And in person he seemed like a more full of life musician than on the album, twiddling with the vibration indicated by Chopin for the third opus. 28 A prelude to something closer to vivacissimo and a daring ascent to the mighty storms of Górecki and Rachmaninoff.
But Lisiecki shines in poetic longing. The highlight of this system was Chopin’s Prelude in C sharp minor (Op. 45), written just a few years after Op. 28 set, and here refined and eloquent, with Lisiecki’s rubato giving the heart beat a discreet ebb and flow, making a portrait of quiet, solitary exploration.
Unlike Lisiecki and Lim, Malofeev played within the smaller Zankel Hall at Carnegie. It was a sensible technique to introduce him to New York audiences, especially since he didn’t yet have the backing of a significant record label. (Lim is a Decca artist and Lisiecki is signed to Deutsche Grammophon.)
Born in Moscow and living in Berlin, Malofeev rose to prominence NO working. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago, a presenter in Vancouver canceled his appearance and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra followed suit, even after Malofeev – who initially had no ties to the conflict – issued a press release calling the invasion an “invasion.” a terrible and bloody decision.”
This episode doesn’t appear to have derailed his profession – fortunately, because he’s an admirable artist. Like Lisiecki, he proposed a mix of what was known and unknown. In addition to Rachmaninoff’s favorites, within the second half of the concert he included a bit that had never been played at the Carnegie: Scriabin’s Two Impromptus (Op. 12).
The opening of Medtner’s “Forgotten Melodies” cycle, “Sonata-Reminiscenza” in A minor, was a feast, a fantasy of nostalgia during which the memory of childhood songfulness flows through 14 minutes of varied colours and textures. In other hands the piece could have achieved greater scope, but Malofeev kept it beautifully intimate.
In the primary piece of this system, a transcription of Bach’s Organ Concerto in A minor (BWV 593), the textures were more ruffled than wealthy. But Malofeev’s Scriabin – the improvised ones, in addition to the Prelude and Nocturne for the left hand (Op. 9) – was relaxed and polite.
It stands out in Rachmaninov, with considerable strength and yet a lightweight and even witty touch. Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor (in its revised, condensed version) was flexible, but didn’t lose its sense of structure and intention. The faintest sting of a high note at the top of the primary movement; the subtle charm of the late melody within the second movement; the balance of rawness and brilliance within the finale – all the pieces was impressively delivered.
Both he and Lisiecki played Op. 3, No. 2 prelude, but they were intriguingly different. Lisiecki gave it a grave-granite character, Malofeev gave it a more freehand and dreamlike character.
In a great sense of the word, nevertheless, these two pianists are more similar than different, each having a mode that’s fundamentally calm and understated, never intrusive, even at its most virtuosic.
