Pianist Gliadkovsky Stuns With Intensity

The Raitt Recital Hall at Pepperdine is a small wonder among venues in the area, an acoustically sensitive place where no pin drop goes unnoticed. Which meant that nobody in the hall Sunday had the slightest problem hearing pianist Kirill Gliadkovsky, whose often thunderous approach shook the proverbial rafters.

In fact, the intensity--and a nicely honed musicality--left the audience a bit stunned at times. Laying into the low end of the piano in particular, the Russian-born, Los Angeles-based pianist reminded us of the stentorian potential of his instrument.

But in this mostly romantic program, highlighted by Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” the “more is more” approach was warranted, and the result was often enthralling. In its rigorous solo piano version, Mussorgsky’s classic piece of “picturesque” writing assumes an identity as a heroic tour de force, in contrast to Ravel’s colorful and popular orchestration.

Gliadkovsky was up to the challenge, coaxing a spectrum of dynamic levels required by the work’s 16 separate vignettes, but obviously savoring the fortissimo moments, right up to the triumphant finale. He took no prisoners.

He opened the recital, somewhat deceptively, with Clementi’s Sonata, Opus 24, No. 2, the last bit of classical restraint all afternoon. The pianist brought apt extremes of tenderness and bombast to Brahms’ Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Opus 24, with an episodic and quasi-narrative structure similar to the Mussorgsky piece. All in all, a gripping and masterful performance.