In her recital entitled 'Opus 1' Anna Geniushene, a pianist who leaves her many competition successes far behind in playing of a scintillating and joyous freedom, ranges through music of humble(Chopin) and momentous beginnings(Brahms and Berg). The bald opening of Chopin's C minor Rondo, composed when he was fifteen, is inconceivable at a later stage in his career, yet the ornate figuration already hints at the glories to come. Given in less gifted hands it could seem over-extended but from Geniushene it could hardly sound more characterful or persuasive.
Tchaikovsky took a dim view of his piano works, and the 'Scherzo a la Russe,' though not without its appeal, reaches its race- away coda not a moment too soon. The 'Impromptu' hints at something bolder and more experimental, flirting with impressionism and, at times, an almost Alkanesque eccentricity.
Schumann's 'Abegg' Variations lift you on to an altogether higher musical plain Written when the composer looked ahead to a future as a pianist, its virtuoso charms are hard to resist, and never more so than in a conclusion which sends the theme waltzing to the stars.
Memorable in all of the above, Geniushene is crystal clear in the fevered complexity of the Berg Sonata and, again, she could hardly be more responsive to the composer's tortured, over-wrought idiom. In the first of Brahm's Three Piano Sonatas she reminds you of Clara Schumann's exclamation, ' the eagle has spread his wings' as she listened in awe to music already ablaze with ambition(the opening a memory of Beethoven's 'Hammerklavier' Sonata)and rhetorical grandeur. Here, Brahms is already a master of his craft, more so than in the often wildly eccentric Second Sonata, though less so than in the Third. Again, Geniushene clarifies even heavily opaque textures, and if she is less of a swash buckler than, say, Julius Katchen or, more recently, Alexandre Kantorow,e34 her drive and impulse are qualities to wonder at.
No praise could be high enough for such manifest musical vitality. I can scarcely wait to hear her in 'Opus 2' and in many more opuses to come.
Bryce Morrison