Yevgeny Sudbin is the type of pianist that reviewers rave over. One refers to the young pianist's style as having "delectably light-fingered brilliance."
The audience at the Raven's Cry Theatre on May 1 for the Coast Recital Society's final concert of the season would agree. Sudbin enraptured the full house with a diverse program that opened with Haydn's Sonata in B Minor and closed with an energetic double encore from Rachmaninoff.
This is the third time Sudbin has visited Sechelt to perform, a side benefit of his concert at the Chan Centre in Vancouver two days before. Sechelt was the last concert of his tour and he's off home to London by the time you read this, to spend time with his musical wife and his 10-month-old daughter, who is already fond of the piano.
Sudbin also comes from a musical family. He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, a city acknowledged as the country's cultural centre. He first studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, but the family chose to leave the country and he continued his studies in Berlin and then London at the Royal Academy of Music. His career as a concert pianist has taken him from an annual recital at London's famous Wigmore Hall to performances around the world, including at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, in Milan, Singapore and New York.
Is there an expectation that Russian pianists will always like and want to play the Russian composers? Yes, the audience expects that, Sudbin notes, but in fact, he does like the Russians. On Sunday, he performed selections from the Russian Dmitri Shostakovich's Preludes, Op. 34.
"Rachmaninoff is close to my heart," he said. "I also love Haydn very much, and I never thought I would enjoy Beethoven, but now I do." His latest recording, Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos. 4 & 5 with the Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vanska, has been a success. Although there are hundreds of recordings of Beethoven on the market, this one has received good reviews and good customer response.
"Chopin is the hardest composer for me," he reports. On Sunday he performed two pieces, Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major and Ballade No. 4 in F Minor from Chopin, and it appeared physically demanding. Sudbin plays like he means it. He leans into the piano, becoming the piano, rising and falling on his bench.
"I need the power from my back," he said. He is a lean, slender figure, and the piano is heavy. "I'm only concerned with the sound, the sound quality." He needs no musical score in front of him but plays a diverse repertoire entirely from memory.
"It's just practice," he says. "Hours of work "
Other highlights included the Gaspard de la Nuit in three movements, a technically difficult and complex piece by Maurice Ravel.
The CRS has already planned a full 2011/2012 season starting Sept. 24 with Boris Giltburg on piano. Highlights include the soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian with Serouj Kradjian on piano on Nov. 6 and the St. Lawrence String Quartet, also in November. Representing musicians found closer to home, the Vancouver Chamber Choir will also perform. Information about subscriptions and single tickets can be found by checking www.coastrecitalsociety.ca.
