The Mid-day Concerts welcomed Belarus-born Olga Stezhko for a 40-minute recital of French piano music from the first third of the 20th century. She’s made that her speciality, and her sense of atmosphere and delicacy in Debussy, Ravel and Poulenc are an asset to the music in each case. She achieves most when she’s playing gently: every note has its weight and value precisely expressed, there are telling gaps in the sound tapestry as she weaves it, and even when she turns up the power there can be a kind of nostalgia in her playing – humour, too.
Her programme began with Book 2 of Debussy’s Images. ‘Cloches à travers les feuilles’ created a light wash of tone, with clear highlights but still a sense of shape and direction; ‘Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut’ saw a fuller sound emerge, but that, likewise, vanished magically in a fade-away ending; and ‘Poissons d’or’ was dazzling and subtle at the same time.
Poulenc’s Trois Pièces pour Piano were a serendipity: ‘Pastorale’ almost similar to the Debussy in its mystery and esoteric harmonic effects, while in ‘Hymne’ she evoked a finely controlled sense of the unexpected. The final ‘Toccata’, by contrast, was an invigorating – and still controlled – workout.
She played nos. 2, 4 and 5 of Ravel’s Miroirs in a way that, for all its beauties, was bewitching. The birds of ‘Oiseaux tristes’ were definitely sad, ‘Alborado del gracioso’ was springy, fun and yet with a touch of longing, and ‘La vallée des cloches’ had a series of deep sighs in its phrasing.
It was an individual, technically accomplished and seriously felt response to music in which harmonic colour and impressionistic mood-painting count more than anything.
Olga Stezhko c Chris Pasipanodya
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