Concert pianism’s exceptional demands – both physical and mental – mean that its practitioners tend to be exceptionally talented people, and the young Uzbek-Israeli pianist Roman Rabinovich is definitely one of those.
He draws or paints every day, and the covers of his new Haydn CD bear his own pen-and wash designs; he also composes compulsively. "It is important for me that whatever I create comes from a place of spontaneity and playfulness," he wrote recently, and he’s also currently exploring the sound-worlds of historic pianos.
He’s come to believe, with touching mysticism, that instruments retain the personality and the sound of their previous owners: "Their DNA is forever ingrained in the keys. I have enjoyed the great privilege of playing the piano which Haydn touched."
He has a formidable technique and likes to shock, as he did at the beginning of his latest Wigmore recital: Ligeti’s "Musica Ricercata", which exemplified that composer’s desire "to build up a new music from nothing" and which does so with extreme severity, came over with startling force, as Rabinovich’s playing ran the gamut of rage and comedy, lyricism and heroic declamation.
The Bach Partita which followed was extraordinarily vivid and muscular, as was the Schubert sonata with which he ended. He’s 34, but is as yet little known in Britain and seldom plays here: all the more reason to get his superb Haydn CD (FHR71).
