Anatole Leikin

The 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow was a fascinating, if occasionally sordid, affair. Yet, despite some controversies, a few promising young star artists emerged, one of whom was indisputably Daniil Trifonov, the eventual winner of the competition. (By that time, he had won First Prize at the Rubinstein competition in Tel Aviv and Third Prize at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw.)

The beginning of the San Francisco recital debut of the German pianist and conductor Christian Zacharias, currently the principal conductor of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne (Switzerland), was rather indicative.

Alexander Melnikov’s recital on Saturday afternoon at the San Francisco Conservatory was one of the more notable Bay Area debuts. And not only because of its gargantuan length: It took Melnikov a full three hours (including two intermissions) to get through the entire set of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87.

Hearing Russian liturgical music outside the church is an unusual occurrence in this country, so hearing a concert program that consists almost entirely of Russian sacred music is a rare treat indeed. The Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale, conducted by Artistic Director Elena Sharkova, offered just such a program of early 20th-century Russian liturgical music on Friday night at the Santa Clara Mission.

Moriz Rosenthal (1862-1946), a great Polish virtuoso and a scathingly acerbic wit, once remarked, on learning that his fellow pianist Artur Schnabel had been rejected by the army as a draftee, "Well, what did you expect? No fingers!" The Brazilian-born pianist Arnaldo Cohen definitely has fingers. The concert he gave Saturday at Herbst Theatre under the auspices of San Francisco Performances proved, once again, that Cohen can dispatch, with visible ease and enjoyment, most rapid passages, double notes, quick repetitions, octaves in swift succession — you name it.

There are several pianists today who have built their repertoire around the music of a particular composer. I can think of a number of prominent artists specializing in Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or Chopin. But I would hesitate to name a foremost “Rachmaninovist.”
Pianists face daunting difficulties when they play Rachmaninov. They have to generate that special, rich, and full-bodied tone associated with the composer.

Although Yuja Wang's recital program Sunday at Herbst Theatre was not the longest I have heard, it was definitely one of the more technically demanding and emotionally intense. The 20-year-old virtuoso played three sonatas in a row: Liszt’s monumental B minor; Scriabin’s Sonata-Fantasia, Op. 19; and Bartók’s Sonata from 1926.

It is always gratifying to hear an elegant playing of Beethoven's music by a master perfectionist. Or, as it were, mostly Beethoven, and mostly elegant. The program on Sunday, in Davies Symphony Hall, featured András Schiff in a performance of four Beethoven piano sonatas: Op. 10, Nos. 1, 2, and 3; and Op. 13. There was also a colossal encore, Bach's Partita in C Minor. Overall, the stylishness of execution was pushed aside occasionally by the abrasiveness of the piano tone in forte.

The San Francisco Symphony's festival this month, "Russian Firebrand, Russian Virtuoso: The Music of Prokofiev," conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, features, quite appropriately, four pianists (Yefim Bronfman, Vladimir Feltsman, Mikhail Rudy, and Ilya Yakushev) who, like Prokofiev, grew up or received their musical training in Russia (or in two cases, the former republics of the Soviet Union).
There is a certain mystique surrounding the Russian piano school, as well as plenty of stereotypes.