Nov. 3, Singleton Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University
The Russian school of piano playing, in which muscularity meets poetry, is an archetype of classical music dating back to Anton Rubinstein in the late-19th century and Sergei Rachmaninoff in the early 20th. The tradition sounds to be in good hands for decades to come from Alexander Malofeev, who performed in the latest installment of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Rennolds Chamber Concerts.
Malofeev, a young Russian pianist now based in Berlin, displayed both virtuoso technique and immersion in mood-painting and tone coloration in a program ranging from Schubert and Chopin to Rachmaninoff and Scriabin.
His performance was one of high contrasts, emphasizing the literal meaning of his instrument’s name – pianoforte, from the Italian for “soft” (piano) and “loud” (forte) – with less attention to the volumes in between.
This tendency was most pronounced in his treatments of Schubert’s “Three Piano Pieces,” D. 946, and Chopin’s “Andante spianato and Grand Polonaise brilliante,” Op. 22, brightening and enlarging the tone of music originally heard on early pianos with far less projective power and brilliance than the modern instrument.
The composers no doubt would be dazzled by a Steinway grand, and by this pianist’s emphatic yet fleet pianism; but they also might wish for firmer grounding in the tunes of these pieces, rooted in German and Polish folk song and dance. Malofeev’s exuberant, high-contrast, at times almost bel canto-operatic approach pushed those folk roots deeper underground than Schubert and Chopin might have desired.
He was audibly more attuned to the tonal and expressive qualities of Rachmaninoff’s “Morceaux de fantaisie” (“Fantasy Pieces”), Op. 3, and Scriabin’s four Op. 22 preludes and Fantasie, Op. 28.
Rachmaninoff’s set of five short pieces is the source of his greatest hit, the Prelude in C sharp minor, which Malofeev introduced monumentally in its crack-of-doom opening chords, subsequently exploring its moody depths to memorable effect. He brought similar contrasts of tonal power and expressive nuance to the other pieces in the set.
In the Scriabin selections, and several encores, Malofeev proved to be an unusually sensitive colorist and exponent of musical fantasy. Scriabin’s seemingly improvisational musical constructs clearly strike a chord with this pianist.
Malofeev is 23, past the prodigy stage (he first came to fame as a 13-year-old competition winner) but with full maturity and ripening as an interpreter still ahead of him. He’s got the chops – sensationally – and a keen ear for shades of tone color. It will be fascinating to hear what he makes of his talent in the future.