Angelina Kopyrina, Portsmouth Cathedral, May 22
Some of us have barely recovered from Angelina Kopyrina’s recent performance of Prokofiev which formed part of what so far has been a tremendous year for Russian music in these parts with some extraordinary Gubaidulina in Chichester and the Petersfield Orchestra’s sensational Shostakovich. They were all monumental in their ways whereas Chopin is almost too easy to like which is about the most flattering criticism one can have. Surely, eventually, greater thrill and achievement can’t be stacked on top of itself indefinitely. However, that doesn’t prevent the genuine artist from trying.
The Ballade no. 1, op. 23, was lush before becoming panoramic and then exhilarating and that served as an appetizer. The Liszt Transcendental Etude no. 4, Mazeppa, should not lead us astray with any expectation of calm transcendental meditation, being demonic in its fff‘s if not more. It seems it’s ultimately up to the piano how many f’s you can have and not all can provide five. Any grandstanding by the likes of Led Zeppelin or other sundry rock bands is put into context by Franz Liszt and made to sound like casual doodles. They all owe him the profoundest of debts.
But there needs must be piano or else the forte means not much, everything being relative, and the Chopin Ballade no. 4, op. 52, begins poignantly with Angelina perfectly capable of delicacy except for the most part preferring the grander scale which arrived in short order before the Etude, op. 25, no. 11, with its torrential right hand.
Equally, there are passages of reverie and pacific trance in the Mephisto Waltz, gorgeously done in their own right and under appreciated if only seen as contrast in this summation of all that had gone before, as if such a high octane set would ever admit to having a climax and only want to imply more. The language burns out long before the music ever would.
There was some suspicion that the Prokofiev Sonata was going to be a hard act to follow and it was but, as ever, one came away from a Kopyrina show undisappointed. It is always the most essential ticket in town.
David Green
By Portsmouth Cathedral music events.
