Pianist Gleb Ivanov wowed the audience with a bravura performance on Saturday, June 5, at the Levitas Center for the Arts at Southampton’s Cultural Center, in the final recital of the season for the Cultural Center’s “Rising Stars” series.
Mr. Ivanov, who is well known to fans of Pianofest in the Hamptons, came trailing clouds of glory. At an early age he won numerous prizes in his native Moscow, and in 2005 won the First Prize in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center.
He began the evening with Haydn’s Sonata in C Major, Hob. 48. Haydn’s sonatas have a brilliance and beauty that is comparable to anything Mozart essayed in the same form.
The C Major has two movements: the first is a theme and variations, the second a virtuosic rondo. Mr. Ivanov traversed the work with considerable grace.
He next performed two transcriptions by Liszt of the Schubert songs, “Gute Nacht” and “Ave Maria.” These transcriptions are acts of homage by Liszt to Schubert. During “Gute Nacht” in my mind’s ear I could hear Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore, at least until the last quarter when Liszt couldn’t resist throwing in a few bushels of notes that were distinctly un-Schubertian.
The “Ave Maria” was simple and reverent. Mr. Ivanov’s pianism was limpid and inward looking and this listener almost wished for the silent attentiveness of prayer rather than applause.
The final work on the program was Prokofiev’s magnificent Sonata No. 6 in A minor, Opus 82. Though written before Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, it is grouped with No. 7 and No. 8 as one of the “war sonatas.”
The work is unmistakable Prokofiev, combining all that makes up his sonic world. The seemingly machine-driven rhythms of the first movement, which remind us of the iconoclast who wished to scandalize, are followed in the second movement by a heart-on-the-sleeve romanticism that is playful and almost childlike.
The third movement, marked tempo di valzer lentissimo, is a slow waltz that is also romantic, yet grave. The final movement seemed at first a playful romp, but soon reverted to the jagged opening theme of the first movement. Mr. Ivanov moved through the work with an astonishing digital clarity and a deeply affecting emotional commitment, creating an edge-of-the-seat excitement till its conclusion, when the audience spontaneously rose to give him the acknowledgement that was his due.
His encore was a transcription of the Bach Prelude in B minor by Alexander Siloti. Siloti transposed the work from E minor to B minor and moved the sixteenth note figuration from the left to the right hand. This has been described as Siloti’s most “tender and perfect” composition. It was a touching and elegant conclusion to a superb performance.
The most memorable musical events contain three essentials: technique, interpretive penetration, and emotional depth. All three were very much in evidence in Mr. Ivanov’s extraordinary performance.
on Jun 8, 2010