May 13, 2006
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The Washington Post 5/13/06: Ukrainian pianist Vitaly Samoshko had to run a gauntlet of terrors on Thursday night. First there was the packed audience at the Embassy of Poland, freshly drenched from the downpours outside. Then there was the scary portrait of piano god (and former Prime Minister) Ignace Jan Paderewski glowering sternly over the Steinway. And finally –most terrible of all! – there was Samoshko’s discovery that he’d neglected to pack a tie to go with his formal tails -- and would have to perform en deshabille.

But challenges are there to overcome, and Samoshko did so with aplomb. The opening was a bit ordinary -- Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 27 (the “Moonlight) is so wearyingly familiar that even the dewiest ears glaze over at its opening notes. Samoshko dispatched it without undue fuss, and moved on to Claude Debussy’s charming, chimerical Suite Bergamasque. He took a different approach from the shimmering, gossamer-light readings we’re used to; there’s remarkable solidity and power in Samoshko’s playing, and he focused on the dance-like aspects of the four movements more than on Debussy’s delicate ambiguities.

But it was only in the second half of the recital (the Russian half, natch) that Samoshko really set the furniture on fire. He brought blinding virtuosity to five of Sergei Rachmaninov’s Etudes-Tableaux – complex, volcanic performances that made every cell in your body stand up and listen. And there was barely time to recover before he unleashed Sergei Prokofiev’s astonishing Sonata No. 7. Elegant, anguished, tumultuous, beautiful – to hear Samoshko play it was like looking straight into the tormented heart of the 20th Century itself.

(George Pieler reviewed the concert for ionarts; read it here. )