Review Roundup: Daniil Trifonov Begins PERSPECTIVES Concert Series at Carnegie Hall

Daniil Trifonov's Carnegie Hall performance on October 28, Hommage à Chopin, was the beginnings of a season long series of performances entitled Perspectives.

Much of Trifonov's Perspectives is a celebration of Chopin. His performance on Saturday opened with a solo recital that featured a selection of the composer's mazurkas, Piano Sonata No. 2, and works inspired by the Polish master. There's more Chopin in April with Kremerata Baltica joining Trifonov for the composer's complete works for piano and orchestra, with Gautier Capuçon on hand for cello and piano works. In November, Trifonov joins forces again with the orchestra and conductor with whom he made his Carnegie Hall debut-the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev-for the New York premiere of his own Piano Concerto.

A sensitive collaborator, Trifonov joins baritone Matthias Goerne to perform songs by Schumann and others in a February recital. March offers a rare opportunity to hear Trifonov perform with his mentor Sergei Babayan in a program of two-piano music by Rachmaninoff, the New York premiere of a work by Mauro Lanza co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, and other works. Trifonov's Perspectives culminates in May with an intriguing solo recital that focuses on a seminal work from each decade of the 20th century.

Let's see what the critics had to say!

Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times: The high point of Mr. Trifonov's magnificent performance of the Chopin Sonata came with the strange, brief final movement, a breathless blur of hushed runs that seem intent on avoiding harmonic moorings. Mr. Trifonov eerily teased out certain striking notes, like the voice of some goblin trapped in a harmonic haze trying to emerge. In keeping with the serious nature of the program Mr. Trifonov played just one encore (without announcing it): Alfred Cortot's arrangement for piano of the melting Largo movement from Chopin's Cello Sonata, a hint of what Mr. Trifonov has in store for his Chopin nights in April.

George Grella, New York Classical Review: His phrasing is singular and unique. Trifonov thinks about how he connects the first note to the last, and how he shapes those notes through dynamics and rhythmic placement, and what they mean. The fact that not all of the recital was up to expectations set the pianist's strengths in brilliant relief... And still there was just a bit more Chopin; the single encore was a spare, quiet arrangement of the Largo from the G minor Cello Sonata, Op. 65, which made a spellbinding and ravishing end to the evening.

Christopher Johnson, Zeal NYC: It was all enormously satisfying-perhaps, to quote Ross again, not the kind of "sensation" that others may provide, but thoughtful, solid, and authentic. I suspect that few who were there-like it or not-will be able to stop thinking about it for some time to come, and rightly so: he gave us a lot to think about. And he's only twenty-six.

Photo: Dario Acosta

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