Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Denis Matsuev

I attended his SF recital last night. Good lord, I don't think I've ever witnessed such an audacious display of technique, power, and yes, poetry, and I saw Berman in his prime, Volodos, Hamelin--none came close! His program:

Schubert, Sonata A Minor, op. 143

Beethoven, Sonata F Minor #23, op. 57 (Appasionata)

Intermission

Liszt, Mephisto Waltz #1, S.514

Rachmaninoff, Sonata B-flat Minor #2, op.36 Second Edition

He was not all blood and thunder, as the poetic sections sang as beautifully as anyone could wish. The treacherous left hand leaps near the end of "The Mephisto Waltz" were staggeringly fast and accurate.

He played five encores; the fourth was Scriabin's Etude Op.8 No.12, which would have made a fine, thunderous conclusion to the evening, but he whipped the audience into a frenzy with Ginzburg's arrangement of "In the Hall of the Mountain King." Now, really, I have never seen or heard anything quite like that, including his own recording on his Carnegie Hall recital CD--at the climax he seemed to have added some extra octaves or something--it just defied belief. In fact, the woman in front of me, a professional pianist based on her conversations, grabbed her face and shook her head (in a good way, I think)!

He's definitely a throw back to the "Golden Age" of pianists. I can see that some might think he hammers out the fortissimo passages too intensely, but I'll take that over the overly cautious, dainty approach of a lot players.

Saw him in concert last year, he played the Rach3 -- quite awesome

Saw him play Rach 3 in 2009 ... and encored with Grieg 's transcription.

I loved it. He has monster technique , and the rach 3 was very beautiful. His carnegie cd though disappointed me a bit.

Saw him playing Liszt Concerto N.1 with Moscow Tchaikovsky Symphonic Orchestra several weeks ago in Brussels - was also quite impressed

I saw him with Rach 3.. had very splitting views. He'd do the most beautiful thing in a passage, and then 5 seconds later completely destroy it (aggressive). But he can play SO poetically!

Pianists like him remind us how much technical virtuosity brings to the art of piano playing. There are pianists with his temperament but not his technique, and others with his technique but not his temperament (I name no names.......). When the two combine, allied to great musicianship of course, you get magic.

There're far too many concert pianists around who just play all the right notes in the right order......

He is fantastic...I was present at his 2007 Carnegie hall debut recital....the most astonishing virtuosic and volcanic playing I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of people.

Here's the last movement from Prokofiev's 7th Sonata from 1999 (It might be little over the top... ) :