Mikhail Rudy, the first of three pianists presented by the Singapore Symphonia Company, gave dramatic illustration of virtually everything one would expect from a young Russian artist.
His fingers flew over the keys, his interpretations were grand and tender, he could exaggerate his emotions or remain mysteriously cool. And like most Russian musicians, he is as intrigued with French music as his own.
Thus, a second half (and four encores) which seemed to fit him hand in glove. He zoomed through three of Debussy's ravaging final etudes; he wandered impressionistically through a pair of Ravel's Miroirs, and capped off the official programme with his own alternatives to Stravinsky's transcription of Petrouchka. Three encores were 'lollipop' pieces, yet his fireworks with Scriabin and Prokofiev were in line with his own playing, and a Chopin nocturne cloyingly romantic.
Yet with all the blazing emotions of this wildly successful pianist, one missed at times that inner power for the most extended work, the Brahms Handel Variations.
He had started the programme with a curiously distant playing of Brahms' Intermezzi, opus 117. Like the Debussy, these were written at the end of the composer's life. But where the Frenchman was wracked with merciless dissonance, Brahms was more reflective, and Rudy was suitably introspective.
The Variations, though, showed a major weakness of the pianist. He is brilliant in shorter works, yet for a more extended piece, his mind seemed to drift. These 25 variations are attached almost symphonically, yet Rudy played each like a bagatelle, a kind of etude.
