THE BASICS: Friday morning 22-year-old pianist Alexander Malofeev returned to the Kleinhans stage with JoAnn Falletta and the BPO and once again brought the rather large audience to its feet. The all-Rachmaninoff concert repeats at Kleinhans Music Hall this Saturday night, November 4, at 7:30. Tickets at the door or call 716-885-5000.
THE CONCERT: Back in 2014 when interviewing the legendary German conductor Günther Herbig who at age 81 had come to town to guest conduct our Buffalo Philharmonic I asked him the secret of boundless energy at his age. He told me that the key is to approach every experience as a beginner. This Friday morning, piano phenom, Alexander Malofeev also had boundless energy, but you’d expect that of a young man who just turned 22 last month. But when he sat at the Steinway grand piano on Friday morning to play from memory “The Mount Everest” of piano concertos, it seemed to me that he was already thinking the way Günther Herbig does: “What is this marvelous machine in front of me? These 88 keys… what do they do? How loud can I play? How fast? How slow? How quiet can I be? This is so much fun! Let’s see what else this bad boy can do…”
By my count, Malofeev has been to Buffalo three times before, twice for solo piano recitals, and once in March 2022, when he performed in an all-Prokofiev concert after which both the audience and the orchestra also exploded with applause, as I reported here:
Well, this time it was “deja vu all over again” with another all-Russian program, featuring music by another composer who, like Prokofiev, Americans absolutely loved when he toured in the 20th century, a composer who later took up residence in New York State. That was Sergei Rachmaninoff. And we still love him.
Recently named in the recent WNED Classical “Top 20 Composers” by the listening public, Rachmaninoff is a master of melody and exciting changes in sound, rhythm, and tempo all within the same work such as in his “Symphonic Dances” (partly completed while in Buffalo) and in his “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” both in constant rotation on that station, as is the featured work on this BPO Program, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, affectionately known as “Rach 3.”
The structure of Rach 3 does sound a lot like a Rhapsody (a free-form piece that is very emotional) as the three movements (fast – slow – fast) each begins with a powerful theme, then goes off on a fantastical, magical, mystery trip, and then, just before each section ends, repeats its theme. It’s almost as if Rachmaninoff the magician is saying “Did you catch that? Did you see what I did there?” If you love (and who doesn’t) Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” which is a theme and variation piece, you’ll love the second movement of the Rach 3.
Malofeev, who just celebrated his 22nd birthday, is the complete package. His technical ability is flawless using that Russian technique of liquid wrists that never pound with enough wingspan to handle what Rachmaninoff dishes out (Rachmaninoff had famously large hands that could span more than an octave on the keyboard). Of course, Malofeev can play loud, as any young person can. But he can also whisper, which is a skill that eludes many. And, even more amazing for a performer so young, he can control the pace of music that constantly wants to run away. I could go on and on, but you really have to see this kid for yourself.
Usually for a concert with a pianist, people like to sit on the left-hand side of the music hall (left as they face the stage) so that they can see the pianist’s hands. The older I get the more I’m ambivalent about that, but in this case, if you haven’t already bought your tickets, I recommend it. Now here’s where youth comes in. After three-quarters of an hour of the Rach 3, you’d expect most performers to go to the locker room to ice their hands. Not Malofeev who came right back out on stage to play not one, but two encores! The first was the Prelude from the “Prelude and Nocturne” Op. 9, a work for the left hand only, by Alexander Scriabin, a close friend of Rachmaninoff (nice choice) who was deeply affected by Scriabin’s death. It’s a quiet, slow piece, full of emotion.
Then, in case you weren’t wowed by all the cadenzas in the big concerto, Malofeev played a second encore, the virtuoso showpiece “Toccata” by Sergei Prokofiev (like Rach 3, also in the key of D minor). The parallel key signature of D minor was a nice “touch” as was the choice of composer, being a reminder of Malofeev’s last appearance with the BPO in that all-Prokofiev concert. I’m sure that Malofeev could have gone on with more, but they turned the house lights up and it was time to go home.
On the program’s first half were two enchanting works. First we heard the very familiar “Vocalise” featuring the BPO’s treasured concertmaster, violinist Nikki Chooi. The second might be less familiar, but no less wonderful in its dark, moody way, the “Isle of the Dead” inspired by a painting by Swiss symbolist Arnold Bocklin. The painting is included (with apparently hard-won permission from the Metropolitan Museum of Art) in the program and projected on the overhead screen before the concert, but while we don’t have the rights to publish it, you can see it at the MMA’s website here.
And see the various iterations of the painting (Bocklin made several versions) here.
The music is quite evocative, you can hear the cloaked figure rowing the boat, and it uses all the low voices of the brass and the woodwind family – the Contra Bassoon, the English Horn, and (in opera always the harbinger of treacherous death) the Bass Clarinet. I loved it. And, as I’ve said many times before, music from the early 1900s is right in Falletta’s wheelhouse (her latest CD release has music by Zoltán Kodály, and before that the CDs featured music by Alexander Scriabin, William Walton, Florent Schmitt, and Gustav Mahler, to name a few composers of that era). So this concert is not to be missed. You’re in good hands.
If you want to know more about Alexander Malofeev who now lives in Berlin, Germany, you can listen to my interview with him from a couple of years back…
Kleinhans Music Hall is at “3 Symphony Circle” Buffalo, 14201 where Porter Avenue, Richmond Avenue, North Street, and Wadsworth meet at a traffic circle. Visit www.bpo.org or call 716-885-5000. Full-service bar in the lobby or across the lobby in the Mary Seaton Room.
