Alexander Krichell concert review

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Oldenburg – Absolute music develops its direct impact even beyond the stories and images given. However, these can be listening aids for concert goers. Pianist Alexander Kreichel, born in Hamburg in 1989, uses many imaginative associations in his competent and informative introductions to the piano works of both Chopin and Rachmaninov in the Great Pianists' Concert in the Little House.

Chrishell's superb piano playing is tonally balanced and well measured in the virtuoso passages. With his flexible wrist technique, he masters both the fast, staccato octaves in the Scherzo of Frédéric Chopin's B minor Sonata and the brilliant coda in his second aria with ease. The artist creates the famous “Marche funèbre” piece with a consistent rhythm. The middle section is enchantingly beautiful, like a tender, angelic song. The beginning of the funeral march and the final movement, performed loudly, could have been a little quieter in order to highlight the eerie and eerie atmosphere more clearly.

Everything is required

If the audience was already impressed by the first part of the program with Chopin's works, this only increased when Alexander Kreichel played Sergei Rachmaninoff's “Six Moments Musicaux.” The six comprehensive pieces demand from the pianist everything that is technically possible.

Chrishell finds audible comfort in these intoxicating soundscapes, which characterize a wide range of emotional states. He creates the elegiac singing of the first piece in B Minor in a dynamically diverse manner and in increasingly virtuoso vocal figures with the finest care and always clear in the complex compositional structure. The “Andante cantabile” is repeatedly interrupted by sudden pauses. The pianist creates tremendous tension here and the listener can feel the music progressing in the silence or be surprised by the often unusual harmony shifts.

Time stands still

The spectacle of the atmospheric nature of the fifth “musical moment” (Adagio sostenuto) could have been a little slower in tempo. Time almost stops here. This lyrical gem of sound is framed by a wild presto movement with fragmented melodic interjections and by the powerful maestoso that concludes the cycle: eight pages of thirty-second sustained notes in both hands, including more strings, all played in fortissimo.

Alexander Krichell impresses with the exceptional virtuosity and brilliant brilliance with which he delivers these demanding pieces of music. It was rightly celebrated by an enthusiastic audience.