“A Magician of the Piano”: Babayan Mesmerizes Spanish Audience
Sergei Babayan, 2025 jury president of the City of Málaga International Piano Competition, played his SONGS recital programme at the iconic Calatrava-designed Auditorio de Tenerife and at the Teatro Cervantes in Málaga ahead of the first round of the prestigious competition. The Spanish press raved at the mesmerizing artistry of the American piano master. Codalario wrote:
“Preceded by his reputation of excellence, the American pianist of Armenian origin Sergei Babayan appeared on the stage of the Cervantes Theatre in Malaga as the protagonist of a musical event of excellent artistic rank on the occasion of the inauguration of the second edition of the City of Malaga International Piano Competition that is held throughout the second week of this month of June. The expectation that his performance had aroused meant that the audience, mostly young, attended this unique event en masse with one of the most attractive performers on the current international scene, who has come to be described as a "pianist's pianist" for his way of bringing new approaches to his interpretations in a new and revealing way given the great intellectual load that his exciting musicality entails.
“A feeling in the audience of a true magician of the piano.”
This quality was immediately evident in the approach he took in the seven transcriptions that Franz Liszt wrote on Franz Schubert's lieder, the set with which the recital began. This particular repertoire was the most suitable for one of his main concerns in his way of making music, which is to have an absolute tendency for the sound of the piano to resemble singing as much as possible with the clear intention of approaching the coloratura, the way of phrasing, the placement and dynamics of the human voice, which leads him to the melody becoming the main expressive value where his musical diction and communication is based. With Franz Schubert's songs he made an exercise in harmonic exploration by presenting subtle modulations in his repeated modifications of tonality, which led Babayan to play with great elegance with the dense melodic material, always contrasted with an exquisite form of accompaniment.
This same criterion was applied to the famous Liebeslied, S 566 by Robert Schumann also transcribed by Liszt and to the Hymne de la nuit and the romance O pourquoi donc also by the Hungarian musician, assuming in them the most expansive romantic sense. After the exciting version of Intermezzo No. 1 by the Mexican Manuel María Ponce, the recital entered another of its most interesting phases when the figure of Rachmaninov appeared. The interpretation he made of Melody, the ninth piece of his Twelve Songs, Op. 21 transcribed by Arcadi Volodos, can be valued as supreme for the richness of effects and nuances in an instrument that began to falter in its intonation, going from then until the end of the performance losing timbral equality, a handicap that Babayan overcame with unparalleled mastery, making good that curious saying in piano slang that there is no weak instrument if the pianist is as exceptional as in this case. Thus the end of the first part of the recital was reached with a superb recreation of the version written by Rachmaninov of Fritz Kreisler's famous Liebesleid, leaving a special Viennese aftertaste in the auditorium.
The highlight of the second part was his approach to two works by his compatriot Komitas, considered the father of Armenian classical music of our time and one of the most important ethnomusicologists of the twentieth century. The beautiful Armenian song Chinar is the one from which Babayan extracted its best essences, it was one of the key moments of his performance for the stylistic authenticity transferred to the keyboard and for the spirituality that he imprinted on his speech, as well as the resounding mysticism achieved in Semplice, the first of the seven piano songs composed by the revered Armenian composer in his homeland.
Other highlights were marked by the arrangement made by the great jazz pianist Keith Jarrett of the famous song Over the rainbow by Harold Arlen belonging to the soundtrack of Victor Fleming's admired film The Wizard of Oz, and the sixth song Ein Traum from Op. 48 by Edvard Grieg, in a transcription by Babayan himself which he has substantiated with an expanded pianism of impressive polyphonic effect.
To end the performance, it is necessary to highlight the ingenious version adapted by the legendary Bulgarian pianist Alexis Weissenberg to the theme En avril á Paris by the grandmaster of French chanson, Charles Trenet, which ultimately gave way to a very heartfelt reverie of the song Oh lady, be good by George Gershwin, which allowed Sergei Babayan to show an extraordinary imprint of consummate jazz, leaving a feeling in the audience of a true magician of the piano. After a prolonged applause, he left the stage like a naughty child satisfied to confirm once again his brilliant way of making and understanding the music most typical of past times, which has surely left its mark on the memory of true fans of the repertoire of the romantic instrument par excellence.”
Read the Spanish version here.