Muses Don’t Keep Silent

Famous Bulgarian pianist Vesselin Stanev performed his concert in the Rakhmaninov Hall of the Moscow Conservatory yesterday.

Like the previous year and the year before last, the brilliant performed his only solo concert in the Moscow Conservatory. The geography of Stanev’s concerts is wide, from Europe to Japan, but unlike other capitals of the world, Moscow is especially attractive for the Bulgarian pianist. And Stanev himself doesn’t conceal his devotion to Alma Mater which gave him a good start in the professional music career.

Success in Europe, triumph at prestigious festivals and contests, organization of concerts with famous conductors and orchestras didn’t stop Vesselin Stanev on his way to perfection. On the contrary, admirers of the famous pianist say that Stanev’s skills are gaining more professionalism. Vesselin Stanev has not only perfect technique, he is also a delicately sensitive artist; his performances are created in a manner as if the pianist tries to give answers to the most difficult problems of the present.  Composers, known as rebels and romanticists of their epochs always help Stanev with making the concerts especially unforgettable.  

This year Vesselin Stanev played Beethoven’s Apassionata, seven fantasias by Brahms and twelve etudes by Chopin. The program was warmly hailed at Finlandia-haus “Chamber Musik Hall” in Helsinki and in Leipzig, at Gewandhaus, Mendelssohn-Saal. Local press published that the way how Stanev performer the Apassionata proved his great talent and confirmed his reputation once again. Musical critics said that Chopin’s etudes in Stanev’s performance “conveyed the spirit of Paris elegant salons.”

The musical ideas of Beethoven’s Sonatas are as deep and strong as symphonies. That is why it’s not accidental that Vesselin Stanev chose exactly Apassionata, the composition permeated with the idea of overcoming sufferings with the strength of mind and the idea of triumph of the light over the darkness (Beethoven composed Apassionata when he already suffered from deafness growing progressively worse). Besides, music of the Romanticism Epoch is permeated through with patriotic feelings, that is why music by Brahms is particularly agitated and concentrated on thoughts.  Chopin said: “There is nothing more absurd than music devoid of implication.” Indeed, themes and ideas conveyed in Stanev’s performances are painfully urgent today. His performance is a serious talking.  That is the reason why Stanev’s good-humored face changes radically when the pianist sits at the instrument. It becomes resolute and firm, which is typical of true romantics only. Stanev’s brilliant manner of performance which is typical of true romantics only becomes almost a terrible force. No, when cannons thunder or just threaten to thunder, muses never keep silent! They begin their own battle.

Alexandra Koroleva
Special for PRAVDA.Ru