Performer: Yevgeny Sudbin

A recital programme that at first looked a little random was more than justified in performance

The CBSO shines in a programme of big, energetic music and tender emotions.

Conductor Carlos Kalmar and pianist Yevgeny Sudbin collaborated to play a solid Beethoven First Piano Concerto. Kalmar finished the program with a loud performance of the Schoenburg arrangement of Brahms' Piano Quartet no. 1.

A dark thread ran through Yevgeny Sudbin’s recital at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, from the sombre B minor sonata by Haydn to Scriabin’s infamous “Black Mass” sonata and Saint-Saens’ virtuosic Danse macabre.

It is rare to be at a concert where one is utterly captivated from the first note until the very last has faded to silence, but such was the effect of Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin on a packed Wigmore Hall at his lunchtime recital of works by Scarlatti, Chopin, Liszt, Scriabin and Saint-Saëns.

Dans un récital d'apparence décousu (mais d'apparence seulement), le pianiste semble élargir les possibilités expressives de son instrument, clouant sur place l'auditoire.