Pianist Malofeyev Recital 'From Bach to Rachmaninoff'

On May 26th at Lotte Concert Hall

Russian piano prodigy Alexander Malofeev will hold his second solo concert in Korea, performing works by Bach, Mozart, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff.

Concert planning company Stomp Music announced on the 28th that Malofeev will hold a solo concert in Korea on May 26 at Lotte Concert Hall. He also visited Korea last December and performed in Seoul, Daegu, and Incheon, but those were collaborative performances. The upcoming May concert will be his first solo stage in about a year and a half. At his first solo concert in Korea in September 2022, Malofeev performed music by Beethoven, Medtner, Scriabin, and Rachmaninoff.

The May concert will begin with works by Bach, a representative of the Baroque era, followed by pieces from Mozart, known as a musical genius, Chopin, the poet of the piano, and Rachmaninoff, a composer representing the Romantic era?great artists whose works are indispensable in the history of classical music.

The first piece will be Bach's Organ Concerto in A minor. This piece is one of the six organ concertos composed by Bach and is an organ solo work that directly transcribes and reworks Vivaldi's instrumental concertos. It is a masterpiece that showcases Bach's unique technical skill and creativity.

Next, he will perform Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 14. This sonata features a melody similar to the second movement of Beethoven's "Pathetique" Sonata and is known to have greatly influenced Beethoven when composing the "Pathetique" Sonata.

The last piece of the first part of the concert is Chopin's representative work, "Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante." This masterpiece exemplifies Chopin's Romanticism. It is a beautiful piece characterized by a lyrical nocturne-style first part and Chopin's elegant and brilliant melody. It is also famous for being played in the final scene of Roman Polanski's 2002 film "The Pianist."

In the second part, Malofeev will perform Rachmaninoff's Piano Sonata No. 1, which is said to have been inspired by Goethe's "Faust." This grand-scale work is also known as the "Faust Sonata." It is one of Rachmaninoff's representative works, famous for its rich harmonies throughout the piece and its dazzling technical demands.

Malofeev gained worldwide fame by winning the Tchaikovsky Young Artists International Music Competition at the age of 13 in 2014. He also won the Grand Prix at the International Young Pianists Grand Piano Competition, received the Best Young Musician Award at the 2017 Premio Giovan Talenti Musicali dell'Anno, and placed second at the 2019 China International Music Competition. In 2017, he was the first to be selected as a Yamaha Young Artist.