Master Pianist from U.S.S.R.

New Zealand Listener, Volume 39, Issue 989, 1 August 1958, Page 4

Master Pianist from U.S.S.R.

LOSE on the heels of his fellow countryman David Oistrakh, the Russian pianist Eugéne Malinin begins a concert tour of Australia and New Zealand at Wellington on August 5. Aged 28, he is the youngest of the select group of top Soviet pianists which includes Sviatoslay Richter and Emil Gilels. The NZBS will cover his threeweek tour with 11 broadcasts from stations throughout the country. A lover of warmth, Malinin is reported to be a little rueful about touring south of the line at this time of year. He will have to face two winters in succession. The growing international reputation of Russian artists, however, should ensure that his reception here is some compensation for the cold. Unlike his friend Oistrakh, who comes from the Ukraine, Malinin is a Russian artist in the most exact sense. He was born in Moscow and received his musical training there, first at Moscow Central Music School, to which he was admitted two years earlier than usual at the age of five, and later at Moscow State Conservatoire. Like most musicians of talent he showed his abilities early. He was not yet four when he first reproduced on the piano some music he heard on the radio. His mother, a well known singer, encouraged him, and by his fourth birthday he was playing arias from Glinka’s opera Russlan and Ludmilla. At the same age he made what might be called his concert debut, accompanying his mother in Mozart’s

"Cradle Song," and Schubert’s "Trout." The audience gave him ‘a tremendous ovation, but his teachers wisely decided thereafter to keep him out of the public eye till his training was completed. Malinin was still a student, however, when in .1949 he made his first real impact on the wider audience. In that year he won first prize at a competition in Budapest, held in conjunction with the World Festival of Democratic Youth, and again at an international contest in Warsaw, where he established himself as a great Chopin interpreter. Before long he also added the most coveted prize of all for a Russian by winning the Moscow International Piano Competition, and was chosen as soloist for concerts with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. With a handful of other musicians over the years, Eugéne Malinin shares the honour of having caused something like a riot in Paris. In 1953 he took part in the biennial Paris International Competition begun by Marguérite Long and Jacques Thibaud and was awarded second prize, no first award being made. The audience, which had been carried away by his playing, promptly denounced the judges, Marguérite Long herself joining in the protest. A not dissimilar incident occurred last year in Manchester, where a Malinin concert concluded with the critics raving about his performance and raving at the concert’s organisers for providing a quite inadequate piano. Critics through-

out Europe unanimously describe his technique as "amazing" and he is commonly hailed as a "poet of the piano." About his life offstage little is known save that he has a wife and child in Moscow and that his interests include the national food and national music of other countries, and driving himself in motor cars, preferably fast. Malinin’s first concert consists of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 21, Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 4, Shostakovich’s Prelude and Fugue in E minor, Scriabin’s Sonata No. 5 and "Betrothal," and Liszt’s "Mephisto Waltz." The first half of this concert will be heard from 2YC and 3YC beginning at 8.0gp.m. on Tuesday, August 5. For further recitals, see YC and YZ Programmes during the next three weeks.