Recital Arcadi Volodos

For the first time in over nine years, Arcadi Volodos has agreed to record an entire concert for TV again. Indeed, his recital at Vienna's Musikverein, for which he has chosen works by Skryabin, Ravel, Schumann and Liszt, features a line-up of Romantic to early 20th-century heavyweights, which Volodos renders with his inimitable blend of ethereal lightness and forceful vigor. The recital begins with a selection of pieces by Alexander Skryabin, in which Volodos displays his phenomenal technique, culminating in the White Mass. Under Volodos' hands, Maurice Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales becomes "a kaleidoscope of transparent, gossamer colors" (Die Presse). While Volodos' account of Schumann's Waldszenen flashes with startling harmonic echoes of the Ravel piece, his rendition of Liszt's Après une lecture du Dante from the Années de pèlerinage "radiates modernity" (Der Standard). The keyboard sensation provides a further example of his artistry in his encores, in which he demonstrates his talent for creating his own dazzling piano transcriptions of works by other composers.