One measure of an artist’s staying power is how they evolve over time. And numerous occasions to listen to Olga Kern over the years have revealed a virtuoso whose musical sensibilities continue to expand and intensify.
In a Friends of Chamber Music concert on Tuesday – rescheduled from last season – the 36-year-old Russian pianist delivered probing interpretations of solo selections by compatriots Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Mily Balakirev.
In a word, Kern is fearless as an artist. To a full house at Gates Concert Hall, she demonstrated that quality time and again in Rachmaninoff’s robust, thickly-textured Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 36. Throughout, her tone was consistently warm and resonant, and her keen attention to the work’s layered harmonies and inner melodies was both natural and imaginative.
Also on the second half of the program, the virtuoso/fashionista (who changed from one stunning gown to another at intermission) charged through Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 9, Op. 68 with abandon. Unfettered and on fire, she blazed through waves of emotions with acuity and technical brilliance.
So, too, was her take on Balakirev’s wonderfully improvisatory, fanciful “Islamey.”
That said, Kern was less persuasive in her opening number: Clara Schumann’s Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op. 20. Here, her playing was arguably heavy-handed … even muddied in some passages.
Likewise, the beginning of Robert Schumann’s Carnaval, Op. 9 wasn’t as crisp or fluid as it might have been. However, about midway through the 21 varied, elaborate pieces that comprise the work, Kern found her stride. And that’s no small feat, considering that “Carnaval” is replete with technical tricks and penetrating emotion.
Kern’s encore was a shimmering reading of Swiss composer Charles Lisber’s “Spinning Wheel.”
Looking ahead, the Friends’ 2011-12 three-concert piano series opens on Oct. 4 with Chinese virtuoso Yuja Wang.
