{TABLE} Impromptu in B flat D935 .............. Schubert Sonata in B minor ..................... Liszt Gaspard de la Nuit .................... Ravel Sonata No 2 in B flat ................. Rachmaninov {/TABLE} THE Russian pianist Rustem Hairutdinoff played an excellent programme at Holy Trinity Church, Westport, on Tuesday night. It was enterprising of the Westport Arts Festival committee to choose him for one of the main events, rather than a name more famous to Irish audiences; for Hairutdinoff, who was a semi finalist in the 1994 GPA Dublin International Piano Competition, showed an absorbing mastery of demanding music.
One of the most rewarding aspects of his playing was his use of dynamics and colours to create layered textures. In Schubert's Impromptu in B flat D935, one could hear details of parts as they discoursed; and even when going hell for leather, Hairutdinoff could keep up that level of clarity, in the fugue from Liszt's Sonata in B minor, for example.
No less pleasing was his rhythmic sense, which was shown not just in a strong; drive. More significant, and much more demanding, was his way of shaping local detail - often very flexibly while keeping large scale goals in sight.
The result was always gripping; yet one recurrent feature limited the expressive scope of some of the music. In fast speeds, Hairutdinoff tended towards a consistent, tightly wound sort of tension. So, in Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, "Scarbo" was unrelenting in its intensity: it seemed unconcerned with contrasting the broad sweep of melody, against the predominant, frantic scramble. A bit more time, and the occasional large breath would have helped, both here and in parts of the Liszt.
Hairutdinoff's virtuosity is not yet up to that rapt, ecstatic quality which makes the most of Rachmaninov's Sonata No 2. But he is a young man who thinks things through for himself, and whose musical intelligence makes him stand out amongst the many who are primarily concerned with display.
