Pianist performs with distinction

Alexandra Dariescu was accomplished, poised and her technical expertise was outstanding. She told the audience the last section of Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, probably the maximum you can expect technically of any pianist, was difficult. Such was her prowess she was not remotely at the edge of her abilities.

Her choice of pieces in the first part showed a predilection for programmatic music, which paints pictures. In Debussy’s Estampes, we were transported in three countries- Japan, Spain and France. Dariescu showed the imaginative capacity to communicate the different nationalities and atmospheres through her playing, picking out the nuances of Debussy’s delicate composition carefully and thoughtfully.

After the interval she played of of Schubert’s great piano Sonatas. This one is the least well known of the three, but shares the extraordinary qualities of all his later music with their wonderful melodies, often sounding serene and happy initially and then subtly modulating deepening their import.

The final movement is a tour de force and Dariescu was more than equal to it. Her youthful stamina, even at the end of this demanding evening, allowed her to drive the music on tirelessly while still suggesting the darker side of Schubert’s creation”.

John Sharp

Romanian masterclass brings down curtain

Grimsby’s Concert Society’s current season of programmes ended on a high note at Grimsby Town Hall with the appearance of the celebrated Alexandra Dariescu.

The prodigious talent was apparent from the start of her programme which opened with Debussy’s Estampes. As Alexandra played, it was though she had entered a trance- oblivious to the audience, and totally absorbed by her music. From time to time, a private smile would flicker across her lips.

Estampes is a piano work in three parts that conjures up images of Eastern temples. Moorish gardens and a Parisian park. Alexandra reflected these contrasting scenes wonderfully, so many different notes and sounds emerged from the Town Hall’s Steinway, it was tempting to imagine she possessed more thank one pair of hands. She paused in serious contemplation before embarking upon Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, which received its premiere in Paris exactly 100 tears ago. That moment of contemplation was understandable: the three movements of this piece for solo piano represent the most difficult of all the works in the standard repertoire. The final movement, Scarbo, is the most complex of all and concerns a fiendish goblin, but perhaps Ravel was flend. If he was, then Alexandra soundly defeated him, overcoming his intended technical complexities with apparent ease.

Schubert’s piano Sonata in C minor concluded the performance and, as she had throughout the evening, Alexandra played without a single sheet of music. The ability to do so is a reflection of countless hours of practice, practice that had honed a natural talent and polished a gift that allows her to combine passion and sensitivity. “

Trevor Ekins

Purcell Room, Southbank centre, YCAT presentation concert September 28th 2008

The Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu gave Mozart’s late Duport Variations with an admirable sense of style, and Chopin’s B minor Sonata.  This was very powerfully projected with an admirable delineation of character allied to strong poetic feeling.

                             Musical Opinion, Purcell Room, YCAT presentation concert, September 2008

Alexandra Dariescu is a highly sensitive, intelligent, mature artist. Her playing has imagination, flair, deep comprehension of the music she plays, and she has got the fingers to implement her ideas. NELSON GOERNER

“Her playing combines effortless technical control with an individual approach to sound, particularly exemplified in her playing of Chopin” MANCHESTER RECITAL SERIES 2008

Barbican Hall, LSO opening night of the season, 20 September 2009

Ravel- Gaspard de la nuit
Dutilleux- Prelude Les Jeu des Contraires
Debussy- L’isle joyeuse

This was a wonderful evening of music making to open the LSO's autumn season at the Barbican. The Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu, multi-prizewinner (notably of the the prestigious Prix Maurice Ravel in France) introduced us to the composers of the day with a formidable recital of major works by each of them, played straight off and completely by memory. All the music was thoroughly assimilated, even including the last of the three Preludes by Henri Dutilleux, which are in her repertoire this year. She was particularly good in conveying the depths of timbre and overtones within the instrument. (...) Yet it was odd to see Gergiev's head in the score, busily turning over pages with one hand whilst conducting with the other, in a work which he gave every sign of knowing inside out. That took one's thoughts back to Alexandra Dariescu, who had freed herself for the music and her audience by thoroughly memorising it all...

Peter Grahame Woolf, Musical Pointers (click here to read the whole review)

Grieg Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, October 10th 2009

Dorking Concertgoers' opening programme of the season featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra took me straight back musically to the Second World War. The soloist in the Grieg concerto was the 24-year-old Romanian, Alexandra Dariescu, whose keyboard decibel count ranged from pianissimo to fortissimo. The familiar first movement theme was immediately nostalgic, while Alexandra slid sensitively into the limpid adagio, written in the "distant key" of D flat major. This in turn dissolved into the Nordic vivacity of the third movement. A Romanian girl playing Norwegian music to an English audience. And, dare I say it, performed with even more spirit and strength than the famous wartime soloist, Eileen Joyce. (...) The main works of Grieg and Elgar were both better played than in the 1940s, when we were young!

John Frayn Turner (please click here to read the whole review)

Mozart Concerto with the European Union Orchestra in Germany September 21st 2009

Europäisches Orchester

Rumänische Pianistin überzeugte im Saalbau

WITTEN Zur internationalen Bühne avancierte am Montag der Saalbau mit dem Konzert des European Union Chamber Orchestra. Mit dem Ensemble unter Schirmherrschaft der spanischen Königin war die junge rumänische Pianistin Alexandra Dariescu angereist.

Künstler erlaubten sich Freiheiten

Auch bei Mozart erlaubten sich die Musiker aus neun verschiedenen Nationen Freiheiten, stellten das Adagio B-Dur, komponiert für ein Bläserquintett, in reiner Streicherbesetzung vor. Das Salzburger Divertimento in F, Reiserepertoire des 15-jährigen Mozart, ließ die Meisterschaft noch nicht erahnen, die aus dessen 12. Klavierkonzert sprach. Die Solistin entlockte dem überarbeiteten und frisch lackierten Flügel selbst im Stakkato noch schwebende Klänge, pflegte kammermusikalisch-intimen Blickkontakt mit dem Prim-Geiger.

Ihre perlende Kadenz mit herausfordernden Pausen, ermunternden Läufen, lockte das Orchester ins Finale des Allegro. Bald glöckchenklar, bald in dunklerer Verträumtheit, schmeichelte sie sich beim Publikum ein, so wie Mozart es für sich selbst als Einstieg beim Wiener Publikum erwartet hatte.

Patriotische Zugabe

Patriotisch wählte sie ihre Zugabe, das ‚Baccanale‘ des rumänischen Komponisten Constantin Silvestri (1913 - 1969). Expressive, atonale Sequenzen mit furiosen Wischern und Übergriffen, aber auch mausflinke Verfolgungsjagden über die Tasten, am Ende gar der Sprung der Katz‘ nach der Maus, machten dieses Werk aus.

Martin Schreckenschläger (please click here to read the whole review)

Beethoven Concerto no 3 with Sinfonia ViVA and Andre de Ridder (conductor) at the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham, November 24th 2009

Soloist Alexandra Dariescu gave a stylish, purposeful and robust performance of the concerto with clean attack and clarity of articulation. The finale seemed particularly ominous, emerging as it did from the deeply quiet slow movement where time seemed to stand still.

WILLIAM RUFF (click here for the whole review)

Wigmore Hall, Schumann Quintet with the Sacconi Quartet, April 2009

It was most satisfying to see the Wigmore Hall at capacity for this lunchtime recital, given under the auspices of the Young Concert Artists Trust. It was gratifying, too, to see an audience of all ages clearly enjoying the music – a possible result of the Sacconi Quartet’s commendable educational work.

 

They were treated to a glorious performance of Schumann’s sunniest chamber work. Alexandra Dariescu led this performance of the Piano Quintet with a ready smile, delighting in the interplay between piano and strings, whilst exploiting the full potential of Schumann’s affirmative themes.

 

That said they were not afraid to explore the darker corners of the second movement, the halting phrases of its funeral march uncannily echoing the equivalent movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. This was the emotional centre of the performance, the tension between the sombre march and a more graceful central section nicely balanced.

 

The scherzo was very clearly defined, Dariescu’s octaves impeccably executed, while the first movement came through to a really strong recapitulation. Both scherzo and finale sparkled, the fast passagework of the second trio, a ‘moto perpetuo’, extremely well phrased by Dariescu. The fugal music of the closing pages was tightly controlled and well balanced.

Ben Hogwood