Alexander Gavrylyuk

‘Gavrylyuk is an artist as well as a pianist, and that’s rare.’

– Graham Strahle, InReview

Ukrainian-Australian pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk returns with a characterful and dramatic program that showcases his ‘revelatory’ and ‘electrifying’ artistry. Each half opens with a distinctive evocation of childhood: Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen  (Scenes from Childhood) offers an adult’s perspective, in a series of reminiscences of childhood experience. By contrast,  Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album – which begins the second half – is a twenty-four-part cycle written specifically for children.

Gavrylyuk has chosen to close the first half of his recital with music by two giants of nineteenth century piano-writing and playing.  Chopin’s beloved Fantaisie in F minor swirls in temperamental, fancy-free eddies; a character piece from Liszt’s Venezia e Napoli  evokes with flair the sights and sounds of Venetian and Neapolitan streets in 1859.

The program’s final work turns firmly away from childhood, daydreaming and holiday snapshots. Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 7 in B flat, the second of a trio of ‘war sonatas’, was composed in 1942 during a period of intense pressure and difficulty for the composer.  The sonata’s three movements chart isolation, suspense, terror, desolation, and mourning, before ending in a fury with a movement marked Precipitato.

Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Kinderszenen, Op. 15 [18’]

I. Von fremden Ländern und Menschen (Of Foreign Lands and People)
II. Curiose Geschichte (Curious Story)
III. Hasche-Mann (Blind Man’s Buff)
IV. Bittendes Kind (Pleading Child)
V. Glückes genug (Quite Happy)
VI. Wichtige Bebenheit (An Important Event)
VII. Träumerei (Dreaming)
VIII. Am Camin (At the Fireside)
IX. Ritter vom Steckenpferd (Knight of the Hobby-Horse)
X. Fast zu Ernst (Almost Too Serious)
XI. Fürchtenmachen (Frightening)
XII. Kind im Einschlummern (Child Falling Asleep)
XIII. Der Dichter spricht (The Poet Speaks)

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)
Fantaisie in F minor, Op. 49 [12’]

Franz Liszt (1811–1886)
Venezia e Napoli: Supplément aux Années de Pèlerinage II, S. 162 [8’]

III. Tarantella

INTERVAL

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)
Children’s Album, Op. 39 [15’]

I. Morning Prayer
IV. Mama
V. March of the Wooden Soldiers
VI. The Sick Doll
VII. The Doll’s Funeral
IX. The New Doll
X. Mazurka
XXI. Sweet Dreams
XXIV. In Church

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953)
Piano Sonata No. 7 in B flat, Op. 83 [20’]

I. Allegro inquieto
II. Andante caloroso
III. Precipitato