Hidden behind the KANTL in Ghent, Quatre mains is located. A house where the piano is at home, and which, alongside their business activities, also organizes concerts.
The concert that Xenia Ovodova performed here on Friday, January 26, was not announced in their annual program, and that was rather a pity. Probably an oversight, but the audience suffered no inconvenience, as they were musically pampered.
Xenia Ovodova is a Russian pianist who comes from far Siberia, and after her diplomas from Moscow, Paris and Brussels, has settled in Ghent and from there radiates across Europe for her various activities.
As an opening piece, she delved into the rich piano oeuvre of papa Haydn to extract a beautiful sonata from it. Such sonatas are performed far too rarely at piano recitals, and one wonders why? They are works rich in inspiration, daring and always surprising. Xenia Ovodova played them with the simple clarity that befits this music. The same approach was also evident in the two Intermezzos op.117 by Johannes Brahms, which he himself described as the Lullabies of my sorrow. The two Preludes presented from the opus 23 of Rachmaninoff also had this undertone of melancholy. In both the Largo and the Andante cantabile, the pianist struck the right note, and sang her deeply Russian soul on the 1892 Steinway at her disposal.
Strength and brio then came into play in the Etude-Tableau op.39 in D. A favorite work with which an accomplished pianist can always prove himself and express himself. No less did Xenia demonstrate her solid musical qualities in the masterful Vers la Flamme, written in 1914 by the eccentric Alexander Skriabin. No uncertainty, only complete pianistic mastery. And that same wealth of poetic power, subtle control and pianistic mastery was a pleasure to experience in her reading of Claude Debussy's Estampes: fine gamelan touch in Pagodes, virtuosity in La soirée dans Grenade and fluent approach to Jardins sous la pluie, inspired by the stormy weather on the Normandy coast.
A recital to be delighted with, especially since, after the recital, the rain over Ghent held off a little longer.
- WHAT: piano recital
- WHO: Xenia Ovodova
- WHERE: Quatre Mains, Gent
- WHEN: January 26, 2018
- Photo: m.t.