Kissin in Rome – ‘Mastery and mystery of a great artist’
Words cannot do justice to the three monumental performances we heard today from Evgeny Kissin. Who would have thought that Beethoven op 90 and Chopin Nocturne op 48 n 2 and the F minor Fantasie would appear like new as they were recreated before our incredulous eyes by a pianist who from a legendary child prodigy passing through sometimes questionable interpretations has now in his first half century become one of the greatest artists I have ever heard.
This is a man in love above all with the sound of the piano but also with his evident joy to be able to share his voyage of discovery with an audience. Only from Sokolov have I heard such pianistic and musical perfection. If sometimes the tempi were slow and the music was not allowed to take wing it was because every note and every rest was pregnant with meaning.’Tempo di Marcia’ the Fantasie it was not ……but it was by a strange paradox that it was mesmerising in the way that in convincing himself he drew us in to this recreation and we too were hypnotised ravished and following with baited breath the conversation between interpreter and composer. The central episode of the nocturne became monumental instead of incidental but as Curzon said on hearing Radu Lupu in Leeds :thank God I lived to hear that!
Read more here at Christopher Axworthy’s blog
