Thursday 31 March 3.00 pm
Mozart: Sonata in F K 332
Allegro / Adagio / Allegro
Brahms: Sonata no 2 in F sharp minor Op 2
Allegro / Andante / Scherzo / Finale
Prokofiev: Sonata no 3 in A minor Op 28
(single movt)
A dash across London from Ho Zi Yoh at L.S.E https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.wordpress.com/2022/03/31/hao-zi-yoh-at-the-l-s-e-puritysensibility-and-elegance-simply-expressed/. ……………..and with no pistol pointed but just the pleasure to hear this remarkable pianist again at St Mary’s Perivale just an hour later.
Some remarkable playing with a masterly control of the keyboard and an intelligence that could make such sense of Brahms’ early second sonata that in lesser hands can seem rather rambling.There is a great architectural line and orchestral sense of colour but also a sense of improvised beauty that Dmitrii Kalashnikov showed with such mastery.
There was clarity too in the Mozart Sonata but one felt that he did not delve deep enough into the keys to extract the full subtle meaning hidden within.
It was Prokofiev’s third sonata that ignited in Dmitri such fire and energy that was breathtaking.He seemed to be enacting a great drama such was the overpowering impact of his physical contact with the keys.
He had already struck some keys in Brahms with his fist but nothing like the assault he saved for Prokofiev.
This was the same controlled frenzy that I remember from Gilels or Richter where the music of Prokofiev was part of their DNA and their power of communication was overwhelming as it was today.
What could he play after that he seemed to be thinking as Dr Mather pressed him for more.
What better than a scintillating performance of Chopin’s revolutionary study …….Prokofiev was born in the Ukraine so it seemed like a fitting musical tribute in these disturbingly turbulent times especially when played with such extraordinary passion and technical prowess that would be difficult to equal.
Dmitrii Kalashnikov was born in Moscow in 1994. He graduated with distinction from the Gnessin Moscow Special School of Music (2012; classes of Ada Traub and Tatiana Vorobieva) and the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory (2017; class of Elena Kuznetsova). In 2021 he completed his postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Music in London (class of Vanessa Latarche). He was a prize-winner at the Concours International de Piano du Conservatoire Russe Alexandre Scriabine (Paris, 2008; 1 st prize), the Jaques Samuel Pianos Intercollegiate Piano Competition (London, 2019; 1 st prize) and the Beethoven Senior Intercollegiate Piano Competition (London, 2021; 1 st prize). He is a grant-recipient of the New Names foundation, the Yuri Rozum International Charitable Foundation and the Homecoming Culture Development Fund, and has received the Prize of the Support for Talented Youth of the Government of the Russian Federation, the City of Moscow Prize and the George Stennett Award. He was also supported by a Neville Wathen Scholarship. He gives recitals at the Moscow Conservatory, the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, the Moscow International Performing Arts Centre, London’s Wigmore Hall and at various venues in France, Austria, Poland, Estonia, Italy, Belgium and the United Kingdom. He has appeared on several occasions with the Russian National Orchestra under the baton of Mikhail Pletnev and in a duet with Pletnev on two pianos (conducted by Mischa Damev). He regularly performs at the Mariinsky International Piano Festival. In December 2018 he appeared at the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre with the Mariinsky Orchestra. He has taken part in various projects of the State Tretyakov Gallery. For several years he ran artistic soirees with the artist Gavriil Kochevrin for charitable events for orphans at the Marina Tsvetaeva House Museum (Moscow). These concert performances have seen the participation of Yevgeny Knyazev, Alexander Rudin and Boris Andrianov. In September 2019 he took part in the opening of the season at the Nizhny Novgorod State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre named after A.S. Pushkin.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 