I have heard Mariamna play many times but never in a big concert hall. She is player who finds it easier to be intimate in a big space ( as Fou Ts’ong would often say). And today in this hall which I used to frequent as a school boy and even heard the much vaunted debut of John Lill playing Rachmaninov third concerto with Sir Adrian Boult which had been the basis for the film ‘Shine’. In those days very few or any students could play Rach 3 or Prokofiev 2 but now since Ashkenazy made his London debut with both in the same programme they have become standard fare. All this to say that there is a standard of piano playing, thanks also to the influx of foreign students, that is much higher than ever before.
Nowhere more was this evident than in Mariamna’s recital where her control and mastery were allied to a musical understanding that could even turn Scriabin’s Black mass into a scintillating voyage of discovery.
Bach’s C minor Toccata was opened with great authority, beautifully shaped with clarity and improvised freedom. The entry of the toccata was played with radiance and light and her continual change of touch brought a chameleonic sense of character as layers of sound were continually changing colour but without ever sacrificing the undercurrent of energy that she generated.
There were etherial sounds of whispered confessions in Scriabin with trills like jewels shining brightly with ever more intensity as the temperature rose with a cauldron of sounds bursting at the seams. Brilliant playing of great fantasy with a range of colours that would have put a smile even on Scriabin’s face as he approached his ‘Magisterium’.
Beethoven’s 32 variations that in Mariamna’s masterly hands I am sure the composer too might have changed his mind about a work he was never happy with. Playing with a rhythmic drive and continual change of touch and colour where washes of sound live with variations of knife edge precision. Mariamna managed to turn a series of variations each with differing technical problems into a series of miniature tone poems and gems, arriving at the glorious triumphant ending and Beethovens nonchalant impish dismissal . She gave the same architectural shape that I remember from Emil Gilels or Annie Fischer who would often programme this work in their recitals, too rarely heard in concert these days.
The final work in this recital was Schumann’s G minor Sonata op. 22 where Mariamna’s grandeur, nobility and mastery combined to overwhelming effect. Opening with fearless passion and poetic beauty where sumptuous richness was combined with refined whispered outpourings of searing intensity. The Andantino,getragen was played with ravishing whispered beauty of refined poetic playing of great sensitivity building in pulsating intensity with a magical change of harmony as the melody returns floating on a cushion of undulating velvet sounds. The Scherzo was played with a driving rhythmic intensity contrasted with quixotic changes of character . The last movement entered on a whispered murmuring of burning intensity contrasting with sudden radiance as the sun appears with ravishing beauty followed by a coda of animalistic exhilaration and excitement.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 