Full moon and empty arms

Yuri Didenko, pianist and professor of the Moscow State Conservatoire, gave a piano recital last Monday 5^th July at Sala Isouard. I can well understand how the former occupants of Palazzo Bonici, the Testaferrata family, used to flee from Valletta to one of their country retreats when the July heat smothered Valletta.

The Sala Isouard is placed in their former drawing room and being on the top floor and on the corner it is a sun-trap. I was sitting towards the back just next to an electric fan; so near I could have embraced it. Despite that I still felt like a pressure cooker about to blow! But I digress. With this recital, Professor Didenko concluded a series of master classes organised by Alexei Galea which by all accounts have been well received and highly appreciated. I would have loved to attend a couple of them however not being blessed with the gift of bilocation like Santa Teresa of Avila or trilocation like Padre Pio I will have to pick and choose during this literally jam-packed month of July with festivals large and small blossoming all over the place.

Then in August comes the great void so we music lovers had better take advantage of whatever we can get now before the two culturally arid months set in.

Had I to judge Yuri Didenko's pianistic prowess on his interpretation of the Brahms Paganini Variations, one of the few pieces by the composer where technical virtuosity is more obvious, I would have been unimpressed. I would have dismissed him as yet another pianist of the Russian School where clangour and noise takes precedence over quality of sound, adherence to the score and profound interpretation. I was a trifle nonplussed. That impression was dispelled the moment that Didenko started playing Schubert. The transformation was astounding. Three Moments Musicaux, among which were; no 2 in A Flat major, no 3 in F Minor and the unearthly no 6 in A Flat followed by Liszt's amazingly restrained transcriptions of three Lieder, was an experience to be lived through to be believed. The sensitivity, the profundity of thought , the expressiveness of all six pieces was breathtaking especially as Didenko chose to start off with the extensive no 6 which is so elusive and tentative, hesitant in its attempts to break into Schubertian melody and incredibly mysterious. I was simply mesmerised; especially by the Liszt transcriptions of the lieder. I always imagined that Liszt and Schubert were an unlikely couple yet who can fail to be knocked flat by the transformation of the Schubert Wanderer Fantasy into a miracle for piano and orchestra? It is utterly stupendous. I loved the three transcriptions; the meandering melody of Aufenthalt, the heroics of Erlkonig but above all the delicate romanticism of Der Muller und der Bach where the lyrical line was nothing short of achingly beautiful.

Didenko's Rachmaninov was another thing altogether. What I liked was that he chose the less showy and more profoundly musical pieces; works that like the preceding Schubert are relatively contemplative. I was fascinated by the way he unfolded each work; exposing layer upon layer of molten emotion that distinguishes this iconic Russian composer with whom one cannot help falling head over ears in love with.

The first Prelude in C Sharp Minor that was turned into a popular tune of my mother's vintage called Full Moon and Empty Arms was played as an encore by a disconcertingly impassive Didenko whose intense concentration produced pianistic wonders the type of which we rarely have the privilege of listening to. Unfortunately the three Rachmaninov pieces played were unspecified in the programme and Didenko announced them in a brief whisper, quite inaudible from where I was sitting.

I am under the impression that one was the Elegie op 3 and the others were preludes which out of 24 is a bit of a feat to recognise and identify. I profess to be no such genius. Whatever they were they were utterly lovely which is the most important thing making sitting in that pizza oven of a Sala Isouard for an hour and a half a small sacrifice indeed compared to the privilege of attending such a beautiful and sensitive recital.