Stepping in for the indisposed Cédric Tiberghien, the Ukrainian-born Australian pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk wowed Wigmore Hall’s lunchtime audience with a debut concert replete in masterful displays of pianism, in the purest meaning of the word.
Gavrylyuk is a concert pianist in the traditional sense. Not only does he dress like a concert pianist from an earlier age (it is unusual to see white tie and tails at the Wigmore at lunchtime, and indeed in the evening these days), he combines glittering virtuosity with sensitivity to the score and the composer’s intentions, as was evident from the opening work, Mozart’s Rondo in D, K485. Unlike Mozart’s other free-standing melancholic and introspective Rondo, the K511 in A minor, this work is imbued with good cheer and warm-heartedness. Gavrylyuk’s performance was full of charm, with playful passagework and a limited yet colourful dynamic range, as befits Mozart’s writing. In many ways, this felt like the settling-in piece of the programme.
In his Preludes, Rachmaninov was following in the footsteps of Chopin and Scriabin, and by the time he reached his Op. 32 Preludes, he was clearly attempting to emulate Chopin by writing a series in all the different keys, and these works represent the more subtle and harmonically advanced style that Rachmaninov developed in his middle years. In the G sharp minor Prelude, Op. 32, no. 12, right-hand figures shimmered with Slavic flavours over a supple melodic line in the left hand, sensitively shaped by Gavrylyuk. The G minor Prelude from Op. 23, one of the most famous and popular of all of Rachmaninov’s Preludes, was martial and heroic, the dynamics in the opening figures rich and warm, never strident, despite the volume. The lyrical middle section was nostalgic and romantic, the return to the opening theme managed with restrained control and power.