Kirill Gliadkovsky, Concert Pianist and Organist

April 12, 2000
With intriguing programming that seemed to travel Eastward, pianist Kirill Gliadkovsky played an intellectually and technically astounding recital at USC's acoustically and visually ele¬gant Newman Hall.
For those who want Brahms to sound like Brahms, Mozart like Mozart, then Gliadkovsky's your pianist, and all is performed with intelligence, warmth, impec¬cable taste and the best tech¬nique in town.
To our ears, the greatest composers in their best com¬positions did not waste notes or thoughts. Gliadkovsky appreciates this, so no musical expression is played without some meaning, some differ¬ence, some expression behind it.
He opened with Schumann's Ten Pieces from "Colored Leaves." This rarely performed work consists of remnants from the composer's major works that Schumann merged into this charming. Romantic patchwork quilt. The music is quintessential Schumann, and in Gliadkovsky's hands one can visualize the leaves, young in spring, warmed by summer, clinging in autumn, battered by rain, tugged by wind.
Without much pause, he offered Brahms' "Variations and Fugue on a Theme .by Handel," clean but never dry, managing to make the open¬ing theme sound as if he were playing it on a harpsichord and truly varying the varia¬tions — from grand to senti¬mental, powerful to playful.
After intermission, the works moved from German composers toward the East, and forward in time, begin¬ning with Mozart's "Fantasy in c," K. 475. This piece is not Mozart's most melodic or accessible, but the pianist gave it torrential motion.
In Chopin's "Fantasy in f," Opus 49, Gliadkovsky made the "poetry" epic and had the many musicians in the audience laughing with hirrtet the boldness and .abandon of his nonetheless flawless tech¬nique.
His playing of Balakirev's remorseless "Islamey" can only be described as stellar. Clear to the very last notes, his playing nevertheless merged complex dynamics, dramatics and technical demands.
Still, only this pianist would program so huge and demanding a piece second-to-last. He closed with Scriabin's "Satanic Poem," Opus 36, a romp through madness with bits of the theme from Liszt's "Mephisto Waltz" heard throughout.
By way of an encore, he offered a playful "Echo" from Bach's "French Overture."
In a charming bit of Russian culture, a fan brought flowers to Gliadkovsky immediately after the Chopin, which the musician gracefully left on the piano for the audience to share in during the last two pieces.

- The Malibu Times

March 18, 2004
To take a journey with Beethoven is to experience romance, majesty, grace, drama, playfulness, reverence and ferocity - all in a matter of seconds.

The Inland Empire Philharmonic and Russian-born pianist Kirill Gliadkovsky took audiences on an emotion-packed musical excursion during Saturday's all-Beethoven concert at Riverside Municipal Auditorium.

Gliadkovsky, who wowed Philharmonic audiences last sea¬son with his virtuosity, proved his mastery, both technically and emotionally, with a powerful per¬formance of Beethoven's "Emperor Concerto."

Several words describe the essence of Gliadkovsky's unique style: graceful, nimble, energetic, fierce, serious, confident, authen¬tic.

During the nearly 40-minute, three-movement piece, Gliadkovsky captured the elegant••'. magisterial and aggressive themes in Beethoven's last piano concerto. His fingers moved up and down the piano's-88 keys at blurring speed. His head bobbed back and forth to the concerto's martial rhythms. On many occa¬sions, Gliadkovsky popped out of his seat as if he couldn't contain his rapture with/the music.

During the concerto's second movement (a slower, romantic, more lyrical section of the piece), Gliadkovsky seemed to let the music take over his emotions. He closed his eyes, hunched over the keys in concentration and at one moment, gazed heavenward. (Thanks to two large-screen pro¬jections during the performance, the audience got close-up looks at Gliadkovsky's fingers and facial expressions, as well as individual members of the Philharmonic.)

The 72-member orchestra pro¬vided solid support for its soloist Conductor Patrick Flynn served as a wonderful conduit between the orchestra and Gliadkovsky. His interaction with the musi¬cians was seamless, smooth and complete.

- by Jennifer Cho Salaff, staff writer

- Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

The Raitt Recital Hall at Pepper-dine 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 po¬tential of his instrument. But in this mostly romantic pro¬gram, highlighted by Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," the more is more" approach was war¬ranted, and the result was often enthralling. In its rigorous solo piano version, Mussorgsky's classic piece of "picturesque" writing as¬sumes an identity as a heroic tour de force, in contrast to Ravel's colorful and popular orchestration.

Gliadkovsky was up to the chal¬lenge, coaxing a spectrum of dy¬namic levels required by the work's 16 separate vignettes, but obviously savoring the fortissimo moments, right up to the trium¬phant finale. He took no prisoners.

He opened the recital, somewhat deceptively, with Clementi's So¬nata, 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

- Josef Woodard
- LA Times