Having heard Alex many times over the last six years it was refreshing to hear him again after a period of reflection and physical reeducation.Having been a top prize winner in the 18th Chopin Competition in Warsaw I was able to listen to him three times the following year before he took a sabbatical to reflect and refresh his remarkably original musicianship.I remember in Rome the hall being plunged into darkness as we were asked to prepare ourselves with two minutes of complete silence out of which a shadowy figure appeared playing the opening chords of Chopin’s Polonaise Fantasie.’Sounds were born before words’ we were told as Alex went on to enchant and enrapture the discerning Roman public with performances that have never been forgotten by those who were present that day.

Alexander Gadjiev penetrates the soul of Chopin and Schumann and enraptures the Eternal City

Today I was reminded of that Roman concert as Alex began the concert with a work by Corigliano that was based on reverberations of luminosity and a quite extraordinary range of colours.Matthay sprang to mind with his treatise on the Art of Touch and his insistence that in every key there were endless varieties of touch and sounds.I remember Luciano Berio supervising a performance of a work of his written for vibrations created by deep bass notes in the piano.We got through three piano tuners that day as Berio’s superfine ear was not satisfied with the overtones that he knew were there in the piano for those with ultra sensitivity!

It was exactly this sound world that pervaded the whole of today’s recital.Corigliano ‘Fantasia on an Ostinato’ opened with sounds of glowing fluidity from every part of the keyboard .It made the appearance of dry lifeless sounds such a contrast as they appeared over insistent repeated notes.Suddenly Beethoven could be heard in the distance with jingling and tingling whispered sounds of Corigliano as Beethoven appeared as a vision from afar until it gradually appeared in Liszt’s quite extraordinary transcription.By now our ears and Alex’s were attuned to a kaleidoscope of sumptuous sounds and with Alex’s quite extraordinary sense of balance and masterly musicianship Beethoven’s Allegretto took on a clarity and beauty that is rare indeed.

Now the deep resonant bass notes of Liszt’s Funerailles rang out and it was the start of a journey with a musician of rare sensitivity and fantasy who could surprise and seduce at every turn as he listened so carefully to the sounds he was making.Music takes over where words are just not enough and it was this that made Alex’s playing so startlingly original without any idiosyncratic distortions or self gratification.This was a musician with the power of communication where the sounds became a musical language that created a bond between the performer ,the music and the listener.Over the deep Lisztian bass notes were chords of pleading insistence stopped in their track by a call to arms from single repeated notes. A desolate bass melody appeared of deep yearning gradually passing to the soprano with a wonderful luminosity and ravishing sense of balance as the melody grew in intensity.This was music making of a great tone poem that spoke with poetic sensitivity and beauty with a kaleidoscope of colours that could ravish and surprise. Silences too became so important as the deep aristocratic bass notes of great authority entered and the cavalry was unleashed with breathtaking power of sumptuous rich sounds.Reaching an enormous climax and suddenly there was a silence so achingly poignant before the triumphant melody resounded with nobility and passionate control.The cavalry could now only be seen as dust in the distance as this great poem was suddenly curtailed.

Five studies by Scriabin closed the first half of this highly original recital.There were the sumptuous sounds of richness and fluidity of op 42 n 6 and the absolute clarity of the teasingly beguiling trills of op 42 n. 3 .But it was the sound of a truly ‘Grand’ piano that rang out with romantic fervour and mastery with the passionate outpouring of op 42 n 5 .There was a beautiful simplicity and glowing melodic line to the early op 8 n. 8 and the sumptuous ‘revolutionary’ outpouring of unashamed virtuosity and romantic fervour of the study in D sharp minor op 8 n 12.

Five Scriabin Preludes were answered after the interval by six Chopin Preludes from op 28. Alex had opened with the penultimate prelude n.23 like a breath of fresh air pervading the red hot atmosphere generated in the first half.A beautiful pastoral meandering of chiselled luminosity followed by the octave prelude that was played as a great bass melody of unusual beauty.The recitativo of n 18 was played with an extraordinary sense of theatrical rhetoric of operatic proportions. Ravishing cantabile of the 13th with a glowing cantabile and a flowing bass of subtle colour and flexibility with noble simplicity of poignant beauty.Capricious light relief from the 10th that was played with beguiling rhythmic insistence as we arrived at the deep brooding of the second prelude.

It was the same brooding bass that linked the opening of the Black Mass by Scriabin to this most troubled of Chopin’s Preludes.And trouble was brooding with Scriabin’s extraordinary penultimate Sonata with its meanderings of such ominous overtones.Trills like electric shocks suddenly appeared answered by ominous bass clouds.Becoming ever more insistent like a cauldron building up to boiling point until erupting with a climax pounded out with one finger insistence by our young poetic hero.A quite remarkable work at the end of a remarkable journey that had taken us on a magic carpet to lands we never knew existed until today. From Corigliano through Liszt and Chopin and finally Scriabin with the star shine so brilliantly.

Now we were brought back to the world of Beethoven .Irascible irrational outbursts contrasted with ravishing beauty and originality wrapped up in the convention of the day that Beethoven allowed to encompass his unpredictable genius. Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ 15 variations and fugue were played with scrupulous attention to Beethoven’s indications but also the fantasy and mastery of Alex who could breathe such new life into the score. From the very first opening chord that resonanted so imperiously at the beginning as it was to do throughout this remarkable work. Amazing technical prowess – has n. 4 or 6 ever been played with such mastery.It was ,though ,the character he could bring to the variations ,like Curzon, that could have us dancing one moment and crying the next.The charm of the eleventh or the brutal insistence of the thirteenth was followed by the sublime beauty of the fifteenth with its mysterious final whispered chord.The Final fugue was played at a real Allegro con brio with scintillating brilliance and transcendental authority.

Four encores all dedicated to Chopin crowned this recital that was a lesson in musicianship and communication. Chopin Mazurkas that were played with extraordinary sensitivity and style but it was the Third Scherzo that showed off the poetic brilliance and intelligence of this supreme stylist

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