Anastasia Barabanova I had heard play in Trapani a few years ago and have heard her since play in London . A student of Ilya Kondratiev an emeritus Keyboard Trust artist and now distinguished Professor at the RCM .
It has alway astonished me that such a big talent could be hidden in such a small frame. Today coming to the end of her studies she has grown even more in stature as she gave masterly performances of all she played .
One of Mendelssohn’s all too rarely heard Preludes and Fugues was allowed to flow from her fingers with a fluidity not only of sound but with natural arm movements just like swimming in sound . A sense of balance to the Prelude that allowed the melodic line to inhabit a sumptuous wave of romantic fervour. Not melody and accompaniment but something that only a true musician could understand. A beautiful finger legato to the fugue was like a breath of fresh air as her sensitivity to sound allowed each note to have a voice of its own . Building in intensity with passion and dynamic drive before the beautiful resolution on high of a chorale allowed to sing with a detached accompaniment of whispered beauty.
Beethoven opened with the same refined beauty of fluidity and delicacy. It is one of Beethoven’s most pastoral outpourings that she allowed to blossom with a chameleonic tone palette . Extraordinary sensitivity and sense of balance allowed the music to flow with a beautiful interweaving of voices. By contrast a fullness to the chords of the Lebhaft ‘Scherzo’ was followed by a kaleidoscope of colour. Always following Beethoven’s very precise indications with scrupulous respect and that were incorporated and shaped in her overall vision. The ‘Langsam’ was played with a range of sounds and the natural beauty of a true musician who could allow one of Beethoven’s most poignant outpourings to grow with great meaning and poetic shape . The last movement erupted with a rhythmic drive and burning intensity, not the usual demonstrative technical proficiency, but this is a technique that does not draw attention to itself . It is a mastery of sound where her prolific proficiency is at the service of music .Her extraordinary range of dynamics produced a continuous movement of pulsating notes on which Beethoven floats his sometimes impish sense of humour. Bursting into flourishes too, that Anastasia played with great vigour in a performance where everything she played sang with a voice of glowing beauty and musical persuasion .
The work by G Connesson was new to me but with her technical mastery and musical persuasion she turned a bauble into a gem of clarity, technical mastery but above all of shape and colour .
Ravel’s ‘Le Tombeau’ are a series of pieces dedicated to friends of the composer who were killed in the first world war . Ravel as an ambulance driver in the field saw many horrors that strangely in these pieces are given a serenity and radiant glow as he obviously contemplates the very meaning of life. The ‘Prelude’ was played with washes of undulating sounds of subtle refined beauty. There was a purity and simplicity to the lone voice of the ‘Fugue’ with its pastoral feel of newly born freshness. The ‘Rigaudon’ was a controlled explosion of dynamic drive but with a ‘Trio’ of pointed beauty with quite extraordinarily eloquent phrasing written in the score, but rarely observed . A beautifully flowing ‘Menuet’ with left hand counterpoints adding a depth and sense of flowing beauty . The beautifully played final vibrating chord was indeed a technical feat where mastery was concealed with poetic significance . The ‘Toccata’ was played with a subtle whispered clarity of masterly control bursting into moments of glowing mellifluous beauty of ravishing radiance . All the time the pulsating of the toccata increased in intensity until bursting into breathtaking glorious effusions of triumph. Playing of such passionate intensity after a journey of refined mastery that any little slips were due to her driving passion and overwhelming conviction where true technical mastery was at the service of the music.
This is another rare pianist ( I am thinking of Firoze Madon yesterday )who listens to the music and thinks more of the composer than herself. She is but a humble servant endowed with a real technical mastery that can do justice to the music bequeathed to us by the composer.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 