A review of the concert on March 30, 2003 by David Beech.
The Russian pianist Maxim Phillipov (the Van Cliburn 2001 Silver Medalist) gave a commanding performance on Sunday evening, March 30, at Le Petit Trianon, San Jose, for the Steinway Society The Bay Area. His mastery of the keyboard was complete, and his interpretations were strongly shaped although tending to lack restraint — the climaxes were numerous, and he often carried his subjugation of the piano beyond the limits of tonal beauty.
Phillipov began his program with Mozart’s C major Sonata, K 330,, and followed this with Schumann’s Carnaval which received an ovation at its bravura conclusion. The quick movements were played with excellent fingerwork without superfluous motion, and the slow and dreamy movements were poised without quite revealing the delicate poetry that great Schumann interpreters such as Richter and Ashkenazy have found in them.
After the intermission, the Liszt and Rachmaninov offerings showed this artists’s gifts to best advantage. The somber moods of Liszt’s Funérailles were marvelously explored, with true singing piano and deep bass rumblings only marred by two sections played fff. Phillipov brilliantly captured the wayward whimsies and dazzling decorations of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 9, and judged the dynamics well until the final page.
Returning to home territory, Phillipov chose six of Rachmaninov’s Op. 23 Preludes (he had played the complete Op. 32 set in his Van Cliburn semi-final). In Op. 23 no. 4, the beautiful Andante cantabile melody in the alto register came across well, although the flowing left-hand arpeggios could have been more legato and pp. The martial no. 5 with its rat-tat-tat interjections made its usual impact, and was especially affecting in the meno mosso middle section reminiscent of the composer’s 2nd Piano Concerto. This led to the tenderest playing of the evening in the E flat Andante of no. 6, whose melodic phrases begin hesitantly off the beat, and finally subside into a delicate filigree of sixteenth notes and a soft chord spread across five octaves. The C minor prelude, no. 7, uses melodic fragments as a mere excuse for a moto perpetuo accompaniment, and here as elsewhere Phillipov displayed exemplary evenness in his passagework, leading to the grand conclusion in the major. The soft G flat Largo of no. 10 was equally successful, this time relying on the well-balanced chords that are another virtue of this pianist’s style. Finally, the B flat Maestoso of no. 2 was thrown off in the grand manner, with great momentum and velocity.
In response to the tumultuous reception, Phillipov played one encore, a beautiful Schumann/Liszt transcription, and blew kisses to the audience in lieu of diluting the effect.
