ALEXANDER MALOFEEV Piano Recital
Victoria Concert Hall
Wednesday (14 May 2025)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 May 2025 with the title "Former child prodigy matures into nuanced adulthood".
There comes a point in time when a child prodigy ceases to be wunderkind, possibly dissipates into obscurity but hopefully morphs into an adult artist. 23-year old Russian pianist Alexander Malofeev, who last performed here as a teenager in 2019, has taken the latter route. While his previous recital was packed with typical virtuoso fodder, his most recent offering on a C.Bechstein grand was far more nuanced.
Quite unusually, Franz Schubert’s Drei Klavierstucke (Three Piano Pieces, D.946), sometimes referred to as his posthumous Impromptus, opened the programme. Written in his final months in 1828, these were not published until forty years later.
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Malofeev found a wellspring of responses; restless agitation for the first piece, pure lyricism in the Lied-like centrepiece and a succession of syncopations in the last. Never for a moment did its pages sound like note-spinning, as every musical moment was made to count.
Soviet era Russian composer Dmitry Kabalevsky’s Piano Sonata No.3 in F major (Op.46) is popular with youngsters hoping to flaunt their digital dexterity before moving on to more serious repertoire like Sergei Prokofiev’s sonatas.
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The recital’s second half highlighted more of Malofeev’s multi-faceted musicianship. Czech composer Leos Janacek’s four-movement suite In The Mists revealed introspective and melancholic sides. His mastery of its aching melodic lines and intriguing harmonies mined a wealth of feeling, the final subdued Presto movement being a true portent of tragedy.
Without pausing for applause, he continued directly into the tolling bells of Franz Liszt’s Funerailles, which was the most appropriate and natural progression. Here was programming nous at its most canny. Instead of being bombarded with the usual barnstorming of rampaging octaves and chords, one was instead made to feel a genuine outpouring of grief.
The same approach informed the recital’s final part, beginning with Alexander Scriabin’s Four Preludes (Op.22). These four exquisitely varied miniatures were delicately voiced, the fourth in B minor leading directly into the single-movement Fantasy (Op.28), also in the same key.
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Here was the lost art of preluding gloriously relived, the idea of preceding a major work with thematically or harmonically related shorter pieces. The Fantasy received a grandstanding performance. Like Scriabin’s mature works with a messianic complex, its soaring melodic line transcended thickets of dissonance to find an ultimate harmonic nirvana.
Drawing loud cheers, Malofeev’s three encores were all Russian. Mikhail Glinka’s graceful Nocturne in F minor (La Separation) contrasted with the folksy charm of his Chopinesque Mazurka in C minor. In between was Prokofiev’s Toccata in D minor (Op.11), a flame-throwing performance that brought down the house.
All photography by Chen Haotian.