Arcadi Volodos Recital

Two years ago I had the pleasure of hearing three great pianists at the Festival: Grigory Sokolov, Evgeny Kissin and Igor Levit, all Russians, though Levit grew up in Germany. This year I am hearing another two great Russians, Arcadi Volodos and Daniil Trifonov. I suspect that these five Russians pretty much exhaust the first rank of pianists in the world these days.

Volodos' program last night focussed on late works by Brahms and Schubert. Let me take a moment to compare this to the last piano recital I attended. The performer and the program in that instance were designed to appeal to, I guess, the typical listener. The program was a grab bag of diversity and had an admixture of styles from Baroque to ragtime. The performance was fast, glittery, insensitive and sloppy. For me it left an unpleasant aftertaste. The Volodos repertoire and performance was the diametric opposite: two composers and only late works by both, instead of a superficial "variety," a profound aesthetic range and, at the end of the evening, a deep satisfaction.

The program, played without intermission, consisted of the Six Piano Pieces op. 118 by Brahms, composed at Bad Ischl in the Salzkammergut (i.e. not far from Salzburg) in 1893, followed by the late Piano Sonata in A major, D. 959 by Schubert, composed in September 1828, in Vienna, the third month before his death in November of that year.

Arcadi Volodos is a native of St. Petersburg, born in 1972, and studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and the Moscow Conservatory.

This is the first time I have heard Volodos and he does not disappoint. I have read raves of his ability and they were substantiated. He is a magician at the keyboard, with astounding command of the finest shades of dynamic and color. He often creates mystic atmospheres of texture with finely delineated pianissimi and is a master of the pregnant pause. He rarely resorts to fortissimo and it is more effective for that very reason. He played five encores and, at the risk of provoking the commentators who know the piano repertoire better than I, I will admit that I was unfamiliar with all of them. I am only able to identify guitar recital encores with any accuracy as that is where I spent most of my performing years!

The Haus für Mozart, next to the Grosses Festspielhaus, was 90% full, a testament to the Festival's efforts to make this year a return to normalcy.

Here is Volodos acknowledging the applause at the end of the concert.

And here is the Ballade, op 118 no 3 from a recording by Volodos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IpvyzLnZYs