Arcadi Volodos searching for the beauty of recreation preferring Schubert’s Fantasy Sonata to his last and adding his own thoughts to Chopin’s Funeral March. Chopin’s four mad children found a place in the eternal city with the searching recital that Volodos offered to an audience held spellbound with the intimate whispered thoughts of Schubert and in delerium as the greatest pianist alive or dead seduced us with a Carmen revealed as never before .
Ravishing sounds bathed in an aura of misty beauty as a master searched for the perfect legato and allowed Roberto Valli ’s superb Steinway to sing as never before . Volodos in pensive mood last night with the thoughts and searching soul of a unique giant of our times.
I remember some years ago when I had invited both Rosalyn Tureck and Tatyana Nikolaeva to play the Goldberg Variations in the Ghione theatre at a month’s distance from each other. There is so much to be found in such masterworks that a lifetime is not enough as every artist digs deeply into the very veins of these works and finds hidden seams of gold often missed by others. I was criticised by many who could not understand why there were not more varied programmes at the Ghione !
I was flying to Rome to hear Volodos playing Schubert’s last Sonata as advertised, and to add his revelations to those of Sokolov last month. Unfortunately this was not seen as a commercial proposition and on arrival found that Volodos was now playing Schubert’s Fantasy Sonata in G. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2026/03/31/sokolov-in-rome-the-pinnacle-of-pianistic-perfection/
By coincidence I had just heard Francesco Piemontesi play it two days before in London and disappointment changed to revelation as I was able to discovery so many marvels with this full immersion from the hands of two masters, all within days of each other https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2026/05/05/francesco-piemontesi-beauty-and-imagination-with-humility-and-dedication/.
Of course the etherial sounds of Schubert’s most elusive sonata found in Volodos an ideal interpreter . But there were surprises as the the drama of the development reached almost Lisztian proportions of sumptuous rich sound. Teasingly whispered streams of sound were allowed to flow from Volodos’s fingers bathed in pedal and that gave an other worldly sounds far off in the distance. Explosive moments of daring were diffused with whispered dance of beauty bathed in clouds created by the pedal. The ‘Andante’ was played with simplicity and with almost Kempff like majesty the contrasting explosions of emotional turmoil. A generously rich ‘Minuet’ was followed by a ‘Trio’ allowed to unwind with disarming simplicity. The ‘Allegretto’ was allowed to unfold with a much more positive sound contrasting with the ‘Fantasy’ of the opening. This was the homecoming as Volodos teasingly played with the whispered dancing figures that interrupt the familiar voice of recognition. A performance with so many marvels but that held us at bay and somehow we were not given the magic key yet to the voyage of discovery that Volodos had decided on this evening .
It was in the second half that the magic sounds and timeless beauty of Volodos’s playing came together in Chopin’s elusive Prelude in C sharp minor. But even here Volodos was searching for sonorous effects , as the cadenza was just a moving amalgam of sounds where notes were clouded in the pedal as though Volodos was trying to hide any trace of hammers hitting strings in a dream world of poetic beauty.
The chiselled beauty of the Mazurka in F minor was a reminder of Volodos’s bel canto mastery of balance and weight.The two Mazurkas in B minor and E minor were a lesson in style where the delicate effemeral composer was revealed as a full blooded artist with a longing for his homeland locked deep within his soul.
Drama and passion were how Volodos saw the B flat minor Sonata tonight . An arresting opening with added bass notes followed by a doppio movemento washed in pedal. Dramatic fervour to the alternating chords were of Beethovenian intensity and led to the ritornello, announced by a gigantic bass pedal note. The development section has never sounded so fierce or dramatic with added octaves to the left hand motive making such a drastic contrast with the beseeching answer. The bass becoming ever more important as the development took wing on clouds of misty clouded sounds of imperious authority. The ‘Scherzo’ took wing on the reverberations of the first movement. Volodos had obviously seen this sonata as a single movement with Chopin’s maddest children all under the same roof, as Schumann was to exclaim when listening for the first time to this masterpiece of genial originality. A ‘Trio’ perhaps too free and bathed in pedal, with whispered asides and strange visions rather than statements of beauty. A monumental ‘Funeral March’ where Volodos in his attempt to create a mysterious and even imperious atmosphere really overstepped the mark of tradition and respect. Enormous bass sonorities clouded the whole of the recapitulation and created a fearful atmosphere that was more of Volodos than Chopin. The wind over the graves in Volodos’s hands has rarely been heard as tonight. Notes just disappeared as the pedal clouded sounds that rose and filled the atmosphere even adding extra notes at the end waiting for the final moment when he could pounce on the final chords that were actually Chopin’s !
A highly original and even controversial performance that was born of an idea more of Volodos than Chopin, from a spirit in search of the original creative spark of a genius.
Five encores from an artist where the genial spark had been ignited after an opening that had something of tiredness about it . Artists are human and have days when they are more inspired than others. The excitement and attention of the audience obviously ignited the genial spark of this giant of the keyboard as he revealed the secrets of Scriabin and Brahms ,as lullabies of grief and longing were expressed with the luminosity and beauty that is part of Volodos’s being. His Carmen Fantasy was a glimpse of the world that had brought Volodos to fame and was offered with remarkable generosity and pyrotechnics to an audience that had been treated to a unique voyage of discovery by one of the giants of our time.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 