A spell seems to lie over the audience when Grigory Sokolov appears: the Hercules Hall is filled to the podium, the lights are dimmed, the open grand piano, the master hurrying in with a short bow – the applause dies away. Just don’t miss anything of this unique game on the Steinway, which, like Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, is precisely tuned for this evening, this hall.
Sokolov really doesn’t do anything about himself, he dutifully wears his professional tails, and yet the aura of secret knowledge about music wafts around him, to which he seems closer than everyone else. The prerequisites are extremely professional, in the spirit of the unforgotten cello master Janos Starker: “You always have to be one hundred percent present, both technically and in terms of concentration. Then there may be rare moments from time to time.” It’s no wonder that Sokolov forgoes concerts with an orchestra, given the meager rehearsal times. Then rather alone according to their own law and that of the respective music.
He offered what was supposed to be a gnarly, strict programme: first, not interrupted by applause, nine pieces by the great Henry Purcell, after the break Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Sonata KV 333 and the Adagio in B minor KV 540. Like Sokolov, the trills and ornaments are rich, yet powerful Purcell’s melodic and rhythmically sharp suites and individual pieces, formulated with a crystal-clear, sharp attack and thus aroused the association of something briefly touched on, was compelling. He kept the sound captivated from the first note undeterred.
With Mozart, everything became softer, more eloquent. In terms of composition, the world has changed dramatically, also in terms of instruments, from harpsichord to fortepiano with elegant, slender legato. The Andante cantabile in particular was memorable, and probably no one is able to fathom the abysses of the B minor Adagio as unconditionally as Grigory Sokolov. Ovations, which he thanked with six encores – twice Rameau and Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Bach-Siloti.