Having an impressive and firey 16-year old Gavrylyuk performance as the benchmark and with 10 years down the track of not having heard his playing much, I was very curious as to what Gavrylyuk had grown into.
Gavrylyuk presented an aesthetically (on paper) pleasing program to a full house last Friday night at City Recital Hall - Angel Place. Looking around at the audience, it was mainly of the 40s and up with a few aspiring young pianists (the asian kids were probably dragged by their parents because they either recognized 'Moonlight Sonata' on the program or thought it was a good educational purpose for them to be there).
Opening up with Beethoven's first movement, it seemed slower than slow. Bonuses for sitting in the third row from the front was my ability to see every facial expression, body jerk and grunt or off-tune humming from the pianist. In this case, it was a hard blink everytime the top line melody was played. Did he have something stuck in his eye? Or was this a quirky addition to Gavrylyuk's playing, a response to Lang Lang's ridiculous stage antics? To add to the distraction, I had a lady sitting behind me with a terrible breathing problem - to the point where she was taking quick loud short breathes and not even in time to Gavrylyuk's crawling tempo. The second movement was nicely phrased and a rocket speed third movement made me think that the first movement was extra slow for greater effect of the third. The Beethoven-esque feel particularly shone through in the third movement but some rather harsh tones were produced.
The next set of works was Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu, Nocturnes Op. 48 and Scherzo No. 1. Midway through this, his playing really started to bug me. But why? The notes were all there, voicings were there, phrasing was there too. What was it that annoyed me so greatly? It was the beauty that was missing. Steinways are not muffled instruments but for some reason, Gavrylyuk was unable to project the beautiful emotive singing melody that requires brilliance even in the soft tones! The Nocturne Op.48 No.1 was particularly fast in the second half with too much anger and misjudgement of pedal. Having said that, Nocturne Op. 48 No.2 was beautiful and effortless, the beauty of the night really ringing true. This was probably the most beautiful out of the 4 Chopin pieces.
The second half was Rachmaninoff's Moment Musiceaux and Prokoffiev's Sonata No. 7. Out of the 6 Moment Musiceaux, number 5 was the most enjoyable with lovely colours and control. The most popular 4th one had a roaring applaud after it however I really felt like it was over-pedalled and messy. The 6th was powerful but lacked contrast in moods and was all loud loud loud.
Now, the Prokoffiev 7th Sonata is part of the war sonata series. The way Gavrylyuk played the first movement felt like he wanted the war to end asap. Once again at a tempo too fast to digest, it didn't allow the audience to visualize the 'war' and turmoil within this movement. The second movement was the best out of the three with lovely long lines and tension created through the voicings of the dissonance as well as great dynamic control. The moment he started the third movement, I thought to myself "god, he has balls to do this". At an impressively fast tempo, I really did feel like I was on the precipice and found myself holding my breath for quite some time. He made it to the end and I applaud him for having the stamina and technique in doing so but if I had to draw a comparison, nothing beats the Sokolov tempo of this third movement! A certain intensity is created when the tempo is slightly held back, building up the anticipation and emphasizing the irregular rhythms of this movement.
With a standing ovation, Gavrylyuk returned for 3 encores. Did he deliver to his audience? Yes I think he did, I mean he did have a full house with standing ovations. Was he profound? No, he was polished in certain aspects but nothing out of the ordinary. Is he freaky?No (unless the intense blinking is considered freaky). What did I feel when I left the concert? Average. Yes, that sums it up. It wasn't an experience that changed my life nor was it a concert that will staple in my head. Get your Gaga on Gavrylyuk!
Gavrylyuk at the end of his recital.
Signing out,
Van-Anh xo
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