Festival Music

Mikhail Pletnev

Queen’s Hall

Martin Kershaw

five stars

“WRITING about music is like dancing about architecture”, someone once said – never truer than when trying to marshal one’s thoughts on paper about a recital of such astounding quality. Picking holes in a sub-standard, adequate or even basically very good performance is easy, but how do you define in words the magical experience of witnessing a near-flawless display such as this?

To start with the obvious, there is Pletnev's absolute mastery of the material, here exclusively Rachmaninov. Everything is memorised, and his encyclopaedic knowledge of the repertoire is such that you can see why he famously balks at committing to a set programme. Indeed, he went off script pretty early – simply moving from one work to the next (often in segue) as the fancy took him. Next is his touch, never faltering, whether employed to play the simplest melody, render scurrying lines of semi-quavers with crystal clarity, or shake us to the foundation with giant, crashing chords over the full range of the instrument. Finally is his timing. Far too often performers take excessive liberties with their phrasing on late-romantic material, mauling and stretching it out of all recognition. Pletnev never lapsed into this kind of tedious overstatement – his placement, nuance and phrasing showed perfect judgement every time.

There were too many highlights to list here, although I might home in on the Piano Sonata No 1 in D minor which took up the whole of the second half. It was a masterclass in sustained intensity, expressive focus and complete technical control, bringing to a close a concert as near to perfection as you are likely to hear.