Andriana YordanovaAndriana Yordanova

The recently held Malta International Music Festival and Competition opened with a concert at the Manoel Theatre. The evening was introduced by soprano Andriana Yordanova, one of the festival’s artistic directors.

The concert featured performances by various distinguished tutors, beginning with a very fine performance of two Chopin works by Dmitri Teterin, namely the Ballade N. 3 in A flat Major. So heroic in certain aspects, the Op. 10 C Minor Revolutionary Etude was all that right through.

A different side to Chopin was ably projected by the no less masterful way pianist Giuliano Mazzoccante performed The Fantasia in F minor. This was followed by some music for cello and piano, to me one of the most beautiful parts of the concert.

Veteran cellist Aleksandr Zagorinsky, accompanied by Eleonora Rolanova, performed an arrangement of Rachmaninov’s exquisite Vocalise, performed no less exquisitely by this gentleman.

He followed this work with Tchaikovsky’s Pezzo Capriccioso in B Minor. Sombrely beautiful and elegiac, it was at first performed with great depth of feeling giving way to a light, dexterous rendering of the more virtuoso latter section.

The festival fosters the musical studies and careers of promising young people

Cuban-Spanish pianist Leonel Morales seems to have absorbed the intrinsic Russian character of Rachmaninov in his interpretation of Preludes in G, Op. 32, N.5, in E flat Major Op. 23, N. 6, in G Minor Op. 32, N. 12 and the Moment Musical N. 4 in E Minor. They sounded fantastic, fluid and fresh with the final piece concluding this selection with a brilliant finish.

Giuliano Mazzoccante was back next, this time accompanying German soprano Verena Rein in two of Die Vier Letzte Lieder by Richard Strauss. It was just as well that she reversed the order in which these glowing lieder were performed because Im abendrot was far superior in quality than Früling and left a much better taste. Pianist Yuri Didenko, another vastly experienced musician, performed the Bach/Siloti Prelude in B Minor.

After this, he launched in the Liszt transcription of Schubert’s Erlkönig, which was as fiercely and almost frighteningly dramatic as it was articulate. He concluded his mini-recital with another finely performed Liszt transcription of Schubert with Der Müller und der Bach.

A display of great virtuosity was displayed by saxophonist Hayrapet Arakelyan in the two outer movements (Vif and Brasileira) of the three he chose from Milhaud’s Scaramouche with a lyrically sensitive Moderé in between. It was a display of fine teamwork with his accompanist pianist Giuliano Mazzaccone.

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