Denis Matsuev – in recital from Paris – Recorded May 15, 2012 – Radio France Musique –
Russian pianist Denis Matsuev in recital this week. Recorded live at Théåtre des Champs Elysées in Pari on April 12, 2012 by the venerable Radio France Musique.
Here’s what’s on the program:
Théâtre des Champs-Elysées : Récital Denis Matsuev, Piano
1.Robert Schumann
Scènes d’enfants Op.15 (1838)2. Robert Schumann
Carnaval Op.9 (1934,1935)3. Edvard Grieg
Six images poétiques Op.3 (1863)4. Edvard Grieg
Sonate en mi mineur Op.7 (1865)5. Franz Liszt
Mephisto valse N°1 S 514 (1856,1861)6. Alexandre Scriabine
Etude en do dièse mineur op 27. Alexandre Scriabine
Etude en ré dièse mineur op 8 n°128. Serge Rachmaninov
Prélude en sol dièse mineur op 32 n°129. Grigori Ginzburg
Figaro Fantaisie d’après Rossini10. Duke Ellington / Denis Matsuev
Improvisation sur le thème de Caravan
Matsuev is the only child of two musicians, as his mother is a piano teacher and his father is a pianist and composer. He demonstrated a musical ear at age 3, when he reproduced on the piano at home a melody that he heard on television. His father subsequently became his first piano teacher. Until age 15, Matsuev studied music in Irkutsk. In 1990, he won a prize at the “New Names Charitable Foundation” competition in Irkutsk and received a stipend, $1,000 a month, from the foundation to study music in Moscow. With other young gifted musicians from Russia discovered by the foundation, Matsuev went on tour in Europe and the United States.
In 1991, Matsuev moved with his parents to Moscow to continue his musical education. He studied at the Central Music School at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1994, he took part at his first international piano competition in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he was awarded the Grand Prix. In the same year, he entered the Moscow Conservatory as a student of Aleksey Nasedkin. After 1997, he studied under Sergei Dorensky. Matsuev won the 11th International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1998 at age 23.
Matsuev is artistic co-director of the international “Annecy Classic Festival” in Annecy, France, with Pascal Escande. He is also the organizer and artistic director of two international festivals in Russia: “Stars on Baikal” in his native city of Irkutsk and the annual music festival “Crescendo”. In addition, Matsuev has assisted with organization of other regional festivals in the Urals, in the cities of Perm, Orenburg and Cheliabinsk. He is the current president of the “New Names Charitable Foundation”, which launched Matsuev’s performing career and continues to support the musical education of gifted children in the Russian remote regions.
In October 2008, Alexander Borisovich Rachmaninoff, the grandson of the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, invited Matsuev to become artistic director of the “Sergei Rachmaninoff Foundation”. As a part of his collaboration with the foundation, Matsuev performed and recorded little known Rachmaninoff works on the composer’s own piano, a Hamburg ‘D’ Steinway grand piano at the Rachmaninoff Villa Senar in Lucerne. In 2013 – Rachmaninov’s 140th anniversary year – the foundation presented series of concerts in the most prestigious concert halls throughout Russia and Europe.
In 2012 Matsuev[4] became artistic director of the 1st International “Astana Piano Passion” Festival and Competition, and in 2013 he was artistic director of the International Festival and Competition “Sberbank DEBUT” in Kiev. In May 2016 Matsuev became artistic director of the 1st International “Grand Piano Competition” for Young Pianists.
Matsuev also plays jazz music, and has cited Oscar Peterson as a key influence on his jazz playing. Matsuev was the first classical pianist to give a jazz concert at Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.
Hit the Play button and relax.
