It is easy to forget
that musicians, like the rest of us, labour under vicissitudes of life such as
illness or fatigue. When pianist Nelson Friere cancelled his North American
tour on the advice of his physician, the Vancouver Chopin Society scrambled to
find a suitable replacement for him. They, and we, the concert audience, were
extremely fortunate to have been able to secure the services of Georgijs
Osokins, a young Latvian pianist who created quite a stir at the 2015
International Chopin Competition in Warsaw.
In my thirty plus
years of concert attendance in the wilds of Vancouver, I could count perhaps a
handful of concerts where a young artist created an overwhelming first
impression. After last evening’s performance, I am happy to add Mr. Osokins to
that list.
Osokins began his
performance with the very intimate Sonata
in D minor, L. 108, by Domenico Scarlatti. With the first notes, I was immediately
captivated by his crystalline sound, the range of colours, and the spaciousness
of his playing. This young artist dared to take the time to allow the music to
emerge, never was there a sense of anything forced or artificial. While his
playing was filled with personality, there was always a feeling of naturalness
in his music making. The audience must have felt it too, because there was no
applause at the end to break the spell of the music, allowing him to launch
immediately into his next piece.
It is perhaps a
curious coincidence that Beethoven’s Sonata
in A-flat major, Op. 110, had been part of at least half a dozen recitals
in the last couple of seasons. Osokins’ interpretation was noteworthy, and
could be counted as one of the most memorable. With the quiet opening chords of
this great work, he immediately conjured up a reverential atmosphere that set
the tone for the entire performance. His playing of that opening, with the
sublime melody that emerges at m. 5, was richly detailed and intensely musical.
I liked the clarity he achieved with his lightly pedaled and fleet fingered playing
of the broken chord passage (m. 12 to 19). His tempo relationship between the
first and second movement was, to me, most logical. He voiced the chords
beautifully in the beginning of the second movement, and his timing of the left
hand off beat notes in the middle section (m. 40 to 95) was impeccable,
highlighting the quirky humour of the composer’s late works.
Osokins really got
into and brought out the emotional core of the Adagio ma non troppo movement, no small achievement for a young
artist. Once again, the reverential atmosphere returned with even greater
intensity. Beethoven must have thought a great deal about this movement since,
within a mere 26 measures, he lavished the music with more than a dozen tempo
and interpretative markings. Osokins really conveyed through his playing the
unbearable inner sorrow of the Arioso
dolente theme (m. 9). In the concluding fuga,
this artist seemed to be able to allow the music to emerge in layers, as if he
was peeling off one layer of sound to reveal another. The clarity of lines he
was able to achieve within this complex fugue reminded me of the playing of
Glenn Gould. In this age when every young deemed himself or herself worthy of
playing late Beethoven, it is not easy to find an interpretation that gives new
meaning to this music, but he did on Thursday evening. Osokins made me feel
that he was guiding us through an incredible journey of sound, and succeeded in
letting us hear this familiar music with freshness and incredible musicality.
The intimacy of the
recital’s first half continued with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G major, Op. 32, No. 5. In conversation with Mr. Osokins
the day after his recital, I discovered that Rachmaninoff is this young man’s
pianistic hero. His playing of this prelude certainly showed the extent of his
affection for the composer’s music as well. He played the melody with a
gorgeous liquid sound, and he somehow made the music float into our ears. The
timing of the return to the main theme at m. 28 was impeccable, and he infused
this return of the opening theme with even greater beauty and meaning.
Before the interval,
Osokins concluded with Alexander Scriabin’s Sonata
No. 9, Op. 68, “Black Mass”. Once again, it was a masterful performance of
this complex score, and he brought out the kaleidoscopic range of sound colours
called for by the composer, as well as the sinister atmosphere that pervades throughout.
From the little bit
that I read about Georgijs Osokins, he was deemed too much of a revolutionary
to have won the top prizes at the Chopin competition. Yet, throughout the
evening, I never once felt that his interpretations were in any way
idiosyncratic. Original and full of personality, to be sure, but never did I
feel that he was trying to play differently for the sake of being different.
His playing of the Chopin’s magnificent Barcarolle,
Op. 60, is a case in point. It was a performance that was richly varied in
terms of texture and articulation. And the rower of this boat allowed himself
to be carried by the waves of the water, and the music ebbed and flowed along
with it. In his Chopin playing, Osokins highlighted for me the beauty of his
writing for the left hand. I noticed this particularly in the brief passage
beginning at m. 78 that leads up to the double trill at m. 84, as well as the
left hand chords leading up to the end of the work at m. 113 to 114. Overall,
it was an interpretation that was spacious, yet with a keen sense of direction
as well as a strong sense of the rhythm.
With Chopin’s music,
it is all too easy to be reveling in the beautiful sound world, and losing
track of the structural integrity of the work’s design. In Osokins’ Chopin
playing last night, I felt that in spite of the beauty of the music, the sense
of architecture, of logic, was never lost.
This was especially
apparent in Osokins’ masterful interpretation of Chopin’s Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58. In his playing of the sprawling
first movement, there was clarity of texture and a palpable sense of an
awareness of the structure of the music. As I said earlier, he never allowed
the beauty of the music to overshadow its logic. His playing of the scherzo was truly breathtaking, with a
beguiling lightness of touch, and a clear display of his awesome pianistic
ability. The largo movement was infused with a quiet dignity and a mesmerizing
beauty of sound. I felt that the E major section (m. 29) had a special glow to
it, almost as if a bright light was shining upon a beautiful diamond. Osokins’
stunning playing of the final movement had a relentless quality to the music,
partly achieved by his sense of rhythm in the left hand. From the opening
octaves to the build-up toward the triumphant ending, there was never any doubt
in my mind that I was witnessing an amazing musical mind at work here.
Under the enthusiastic
urging of the audience, Osokins launched into one of two encores, the work that most people associate with
Chopin – the Polonaise in A-flat major,
Op. 53. There was a real sense of drive in his interpretation of this
justifiably famous work, but balanced by a lightness and a real feeling for the
spirit of the dance. In the famous octave B section, Osokins did not, like many
other young keyboard demons, get carried away with excessive speed, but managed
to convey a real sense of mounting excitement. It is not how I think of the
work, but his viewpoint of this iconic work was both valid and interesting.
The artist once again
demonstrated his understanding of and affinity for the Rachmaninoff idiom in
his second encore, the Prelude in G-sharp
minor, Op. 32, No. 12. Right from the shimmering right hand broken chords
at the beginning, Osokins revealed to us the subtle beauty of this oft-played
work. In the return of the theme, now in open chords, at m. 35, there was an
even greater feeling of bleakness in his playing. With the ascending right hand
notes, where the music floats away into nothingness, we came to the end of an
unforgettable musical journey.
In conversation with
Mr. Osokins, I find him to be a young man with definite ideas about music as
well as what it is to be a musician, and artist. He has a deep knowledge of the
piano literature as well as our heritage of great pianists from the past. He
hails from a family of pianists, and told me that he literally grew up “under
the piano”, listening to his father’s playing. His brother is also a pianist who
has distinguished himself in international competitions, and is currently
living in London. We also spoke of his experiences in the 2015 Chopin
Competition in Warsaw, and the challenges and intense pressure he faced during
those weeks. During that time, he developed a rapport and friendship with
Canadian pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin, silver medalist in the competition,
who will be playing in Vancouver this coming November.
I asked him if he
sometimes feel lonely when he is touring. He said that he loves to travel and
to visit new places, and does not mind being alone, since it gives him time to
think. The distinguished pianist and teacher Gary Graffman said that he found
it strange when someone tells him that he or she wants to become a concert
pianist. He said that one can study to become a pianist, or a musician, but to
be a concert pianist entails being
asked to give concerts. If Thursday night’s concert was any indication, he
should be well on his way to becoming a “concert pianist”.
As much as I would
have loved to have heard Mr. Freire, we can now claimed that we were at the Canadian
debut of Georgijs Osokins. On top of his limitless pianistic ability, Mr.
Osokins has a fertile musical mind that lets him make anything he plays at
least interesting and worth hearing. I think we have not heard the last of Mr.
Osokins, and I will be watching his continuing musical development with intense
interest.
