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BEAUTIFULLY SPUN
Steven Osborne's Prokofiev, Ravel and Rachmaninov
impress KEITH BRAMICH
Steven Osborne's impressive recital last night on the Hereford Cider Trust Steinway (Forum Theatre, Great Malvern, Worcestershire, UK, 13 March 2014), entirely from memory, ended, in the pianist's own words, with 'a little quiet Gershwin' -- a distinctly fluid and classy French impressionist-style improvisation on the 'I love you Porgy' theme. It followed Rachmaninov's monumental second piano sonata of 1913 — a work with a strong structure which somehow gets masked by its late-Romantic outpourings — in a dramatic and fluid performance that drew cheers and stamping of feet from the large audience at the end of the evening.
Beginning the second half were sterling performances of the twenty miniature, fleeting movements of Prokofiev's varied and imaginative Visions Fugitives (1915-17)...
Copyright © 14 March 2014 Keith Bramich,
Worcestershire UK
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