Review of Victor Maslov piano recital at St John’s Church in Stansted

Music lovers were promised an evening of Russian fire to warm them on a bitter January afternoon and music@stansted delivered in style with a recital by Russian pianist Victor Maslov, writes Richard Allaway.

A graduate of London’s Royal College of Music, as well as having studied in Moscow, Maslov was performing in Stansted on Sunday (January 26) through the generosity of the Countess of Munster Musical Trust Recital Scheme.

The audience left St John’s Church inwardly warmed by a programme of richly romantic and highly virtuosic Slavic music, which began with Rachmaninoff’s first set of eight Etudes-tableaux (Opus 33). As their name suggests, these studies were designed to create pictures in the mind of the listener and they do this on a cinematic scale, demanding a fearsome technique from the pianist.

Maslov was easily up to the task, delivering more torrents of notes than seemed possible coming from just two hands, but still maintaining a total clarity of texture.

Leaving his audience slightly breathless, Maslov went on to create an altogether different atmosphere with the next item in his programme: three Bagatelles (literally, trifles) by the Ukrainian composer Valentyn Silvestrov. Now approaching his 90th year, Silvestrov fled his native land in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of 2022 and is now resident in Berlin.

The Bagatelles, although only a tiny part of his extensive output, proved to have quite an impact on the listeners in Stansted; gentle, contemplative and with an underlying wistfulness, they provided a total contrast to the ferment of the preceding Rachmaninoff.

The second half of Maslov’s recital consisted of a single, monumental work: the famous Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky. The composer created this substantial piece from a simple but innovative idea: linking the depiction of 10 paintings by means of a “promenade” theme, representing the viewer in an art gallery moving from one picture to the next.

For those in the audience who were hearing the music for the first time, this meant that they quickly had a familiar tune to listen out for, while Victor Maslov skilfully portrayed the contrasting subjects of the paintings. A rumbling ox-cart, children playing in the Tuileries gardens, a witch’s flying hut – all passed before our inner eyes, finishing with Mussorgsky’s monumental depiction of the Great Gate of Kyiv.

Once again, it was hard to believe that so much grandly triumphant music could issue from just 10 fingers.

Audience members, as they filed reluctantly out into the cold and dark, were unanimous in expressing how lucky they were to be able to enjoy live performances of such quality so close to their own doorstep and particularly to have heard such a talented young pianist at the start of what will certainly be a stellar career.

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