REVIEW

MICHAEL PETROV AND ALEXANDER ULLMAN, CONCERTS IN THE WEST

BRIDPORT ARTS CENTRE

IT never ceases to amaze how the world of very gifted musicians can respond so promptly and successfully to an urgent situation. In the world of entertainment there are performance deadlines to be met. This last concert tour of the current season for Concerts in the West was to have featured the playing of Michael Petrov (cello) and Alexander Ullman (piano). However, Petrov was forced to withdraw with a left-hand injury. The solution was found in Alexander Ullman’s ability to draw on his wide-ranging repertoire as an international soloist and offer a programme of Haydn (Sonata ‘Un piccolo divertimento’), Beethoven (Sonata Opus 57), Schubert (Hungarian Melody), Liszt (Hungarian Rhapsody No.10) and a Liszt transcription (Beethoven’s First Symphony). Undoubtedly, cello fans were disappointed, but Ullman, who is having a very successful career at the moment – he was the 2017 International Liszt Piano Competition Winner – provided his audiences with a very engaging and technically demanding programme at three days’ notice.

His decision to play the Haydn Variations and the Beethoven Sonata – both in the key of F minor – without a break or applause in between was good programming judgement. Haydn’s 1793 Sonata is in fact a double-theme set of variations with a profoundly felt coda. The coda provided a direct emotional link to Beethoven’s stormy and often turbulent Appassionata. Ullman’s commitment to the technical and emotional and energy-sapping demands of these two works were without restraint and left one almost pleading for a release from the white-heat intensity.

There was no let-up on Alexander Ullman’s phenomenal memory and the fairly punishing requirements of performing Liszt’s Beethoven symphony transcription. As the great pianist, Vladimir Horowitz, said of Liszt’s transcriptions of all the symphonies: “…these are the greatest works for the piano … every note of the symphonies is in the Liszt works.”

After the large symphonic proportions, Schubert’s Hungarian Melody came as an enormous psychological relief. Schubert led us into an evocative Hungarian landscape far from the cerebral machinations of Beethoven and provided a wonderful programmatic pairing with the finale, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.10.

There are a number of aspects to Ullman’s playing that hold his audience’s attention and admiration. He possesses a dazzling finger technique that is fluid and clear and never loses any of its clarity in bravura passages. His ability and his personality are always at the service of the music and he is willing to push his dedication to the boundary and beyond.

One suspects that the weight of Ullman’s programme would require most soloists to take the following day off, but having performed on four occasions in three days and added encores for good measure, Alexander Ullman took a taxi back to London to be in time for a next-morning flight to Mexico for a further concert hall engagement! Ah! The trials of being an international success!

ANDREW MADDOCKS