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The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)
October 13, 2006 Friday
Sergey's sonatas skim the surface
by Geoffrey Norris
classical
Sergey Khachatryan
WIGMORE HALL
SERGEY Khachatryan marked all three of this year's key anniversaries
with a recital of sonatas by Mozart, Schumann and Shostakovich. The
21-year-old Armenian violinist has been making great waves with his
performances of the Shostakovich concertos, and here it was the same
composer's Violin Sonata Op 134 that drew from him the most
arresting, focused and sharply characterised playing.
Accompanied by his pianist sister Lusine, Khachatryan emphasised the
bleached starkness of the opening andante movement, colouring the
more active second subject with wry tinges, and striking out boldly
and vibrantly in a propulsive account of the sonata's central
scherzo. The finale's essential seriousness and introspection were
strongly underlined.
That strange passage where the piano is let off the leash for a
display of wild virtuosity could have been articulated more crisply,
but the brother and sister duo were as one, in coordination and in
probing the music's spiritual core.
Khachatryan has a dazzling, seemingly effortless technique, and in
the Shostakovich applied it to musical ends with impressive
concentration and maturity of insight. Elsewhere, however, the
playing did not always display the same stylistic acumen. Two years
ago, he included Schumann's A minor Sonata Op 105 in another recital
he gave at the Wigmore Hall, and his interpretation of it does not
seem to have deepened appreciably since then. On the plus side, there
were beguiling subtleties of expression, and, in the central
allegretto, a violin line of full, malleable tone.
But, as yet, Khachatryan's temperament does not seem to warm to the
music's more passionate outpourings. Both in the piano part and in
the violin's, there was a certain reticence about yielding to the
music's great turbulent surges, leaving something of an emotional
void in a performance that was certainly well-controlled and expertly
played but slightly underpowered.
Mozart's B flat major Sonata K378, with which the Khachatryans began
their recital, suddenly came alive in the final rondeau, where both
artists tackled the music with spirit and drive. Up until then, the
interpretation had sounded rather wan, with pretty, limpid playing
from the piano, and a great deal of finesse from the violin, but
little to scratch the music's surface. There was something cool and
unaffecting about this Mozart, which seemed to suggest that it was
not yet these young performers' true metier, but the Shostakovich
decisively remedied things.
October 13, 2006 Friday
Sergey's sonatas skim the surface
by Geoffrey Norris
classical
Sergey Khachatryan
WIGMORE HALL
SERGEY Khachatryan marked all three of this year's key anniversaries
with a recital of sonatas by Mozart, Schumann and Shostakovich. The
21-year-old Armenian violinist has been making great waves with his
performances of the Shostakovich concertos, and here it was the same
composer's Violin Sonata Op 134 that drew from him the most
arresting, focused and sharply characterised playing.
Accompanied by his pianist sister Lusine, Khachatryan emphasised the
bleached starkness of the opening andante movement, colouring the
more active second subject with wry tinges, and striking out boldly
and vibrantly in a propulsive account of the sonata's central
scherzo. The finale's essential seriousness and introspection were
strongly underlined.
That strange passage where the piano is let off the leash for a
display of wild virtuosity could have been articulated more crisply,
but the brother and sister duo were as one, in coordination and in
probing the music's spiritual core.
Khachatryan has a dazzling, seemingly effortless technique, and in
the Shostakovich applied it to musical ends with impressive
concentration and maturity of insight. Elsewhere, however, the
playing did not always display the same stylistic acumen. Two years
ago, he included Schumann's A minor Sonata Op 105 in another recital
he gave at the Wigmore Hall, and his interpretation of it does not
seem to have deepened appreciably since then. On the plus side, there
were beguiling subtleties of expression, and, in the central
allegretto, a violin line of full, malleable tone.
But, as yet, Khachatryan's temperament does not seem to warm to the
music's more passionate outpourings. Both in the piano part and in
the violin's, there was a certain reticence about yielding to the
music's great turbulent surges, leaving something of an emotional
void in a performance that was certainly well-controlled and expertly
played but slightly underpowered.
Mozart's B flat major Sonata K378, with which the Khachatryans began
their recital, suddenly came alive in the final rondeau, where both
artists tackled the music with spirit and drive. Up until then, the
interpretation had sounded rather wan, with pretty, limpid playing
from the piano, and a great deal of finesse from the violin, but
little to scratch the music's surface. There was something cool and
unaffecting about this Mozart, which seemed to suggest that it was
not yet these young performers' true metier, but the Shostakovich
decisively remedied things.