Recital
Yuri Didenko, piano
Sala Isouard, Manoel Theatre
The Malta International Music Festival got under way on Friday evening and will run until July 20.
In the unavoidable absence of a Manoel Theatre representative scheduled to address the audience, well-known soprano Andriana Yordanova said a few opening words. She is one of the prime movers behind this festival which is aimed at providing master classes in piano and saxophone by leading tutors from Russia and Germany.
The beneficiaries are local young people and foreign students.
Alexei Galea, the other mainstay of this festival, also addressed the audience, saying that there needs to be more support to provide not only a performance platform for promising musicians but also an opportunity to continue improving their abilities by further tuition free of charge.
Didenko was also very much in his element in the three Rakhmaninov encores he conceded
The piano recital was presented by Yuri Didenko, professor at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. He is also one of the tutors involved in this festival and is certainly no new face to Malta.
His first choice fell upon one of Siloti’s arrangements of some of J. S. Bach’s many preludes, in this case the one in E minor BWV 855 which Siloti transposed to B minor. The tender nature of the piece was very well projected by the pianist’s almost caressing touch of the keyboard.
This work was followed by Mozart’s Sonata No. 14, in C minor, K. 457. There was drama in the outer movements, well contrasted with the brief serene adagio but it felt as if, at certain points, things were not the way they should be.
Maybe by then I was frightfully annoyed and distracted by the continuous clicking of cameras and a film crewman often crossing the floor back and forth. One realises that photographers/cameramen have a job to do but in the most discreet way possible.
Thankfully, the clicking craze had all but completely abated when Didenko launched into Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 7 in B flat Major, Op. 83. This is one of the composer’s most dissonant works and extremely turbulent. The opening allegro inquieto speaks angrily enough and spoke it out loudly in Didenko’s projection of this work. It also does not lack a lot of irony too, given its background.
The central andante caloroso provided the sole respite and came as a welcome relief, with its own rugged beauty, yet not devoid of a deeply emotional sadness. The exciting precipitato was a furious toccata, with an angry final statement summing up the movement and the whole work’s message.
Didenko was also very much in his element in the three Rakhmaninov encores he conceded. These were Preludes in G, Op. 32, No. 5 and G minor, Op. 23, No.5 and the Etude-Tableau in E flat minor Op. 39, No. 5.
Ms Yordanova’s brief conclusion included the presentation of the musicians who are taking part in the festival which comes to an end on Saturday.