Review: Valentina Lisitsa and Ramón Tebar interpret Rachmaninov's piano concertos with the Spanish National Orchestra

27 March 2017

"What Lisitsa has is a unique unprecedented achievement that marks her before and after in the history of pianist interpretations of our time."

By Álvaro Menéndez Granda | @amenendezgranda

Madrid. 25-III-2017. National Auditorium. Valentina Lisitsa, piano. National Orchestra of Spain. Ramón Tebar, director. Cycle «Locuras» OCNE.

It is not possible to explain what happened in the National Auditorium on the afternoon of last Saturday, March 24, within a few hours. A minimum of time is necessary in order to pro-cess what one experienced in this concert. You have to calm down, return the pulse back to its normal condition, and cease the music in your head. With the spirits replaced by the im-pact, it is only then possible to put it in black and white - in an approximate way - all that we could witness during the four hours of the concert.

There are many people who argue that music cannot be spoken, because it begins and ends in itself and is expressed through its own meanings. Meaning and significance coincide, and therefore it is difficult to sustain with words alone the ideas and affections that underlie melody, rhythm and harmony. However, what the Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa did can be defined in precise terms: I would call it a feat. Her interpretation might be likable or not; it may convince criticism or not. In this case, all of that is superfluous. Hopefully, you may witness something like that kind of event once in your life, if artists can do it again, but Val-entina Lisitsa was the first one and I was there. Nobody can take this experience from me and I am happy and grateful to have been able to witness this historical event. Those of us, who were present, knew how to recognize it, judging by the almost ten minutes that we stood, to the cry of "bravo", applauding soloist, conductor and orchestra.

On this occasion, I find it almost indecent to speak of each work separately. The details of the Concerto Op.1 - I have never heard before a work whose catalog number opens the pro-duction of a composer and does so with the forcefulness and personality of this first Concert

Magazine: Codalario.com

Credits: Álvaro Menéndez Granda