Babayan: The pianist of pianists
Rave reviews keep coming as Sergei Babayan continues his voyage with the stunning solo programme SONGS. The French newspaper Nouvelle République had this to say of his October appearance at the opera house of Tours:
“The Odyssey of Sergei Babayan
On Tuesday 14 October at the Grand Théâtre de Tours, a sold-out hall of listeners of all ages impatiently awaits the pianist of pianists. Sergei Babayan appears, inclines his head and sits down in the semi-darkness at the silouhette of a Steinway grand. And so begins a recital of thirty-five pieces of music. A programme stream or, to be more precise, a programme like a stream that has its source amidst the romantic summits of Schubert, reaching to the mountainous region of a song by Charles Trenet.
“A kaleidoscope of emotions, of colours, climates, moods, of styles and places which the magician Babayan, with the humility of all the great ones, conjures before us from this large stream.”
It is a kaleidoscope of emotions, of colours, climates, moods, of styles and places which the magician Babayan, with the humility of all the great ones, conjures before us from this large stream, a stream that, without the slightest moment of reprieve, continues its course, impatient to burst the illusionary frontiers that have been erected between musical epochs. A history lesson in which Gretchen's spinning wheel drives the baleful, frantic ride of a father carrying his child, where Liszt sends neighbor greetings to Rachmaninoff and Schumann, to the spices of jazz and the torments of Hindemith, and where Fauré responds to the heavenly Armenian composer Komitas.
A geography lesson, in which we follow the constantly changing stream, from Vienna to Finland, from Norway to Spain, from the echoes of Ukraine and Armenia, along the path of the Chemins de l'Amour (Paths of Love), until we see a rainbow arise over the land of the Wizard of Oz. A lesson of openness in which, at each stop of this artistic odyssey, appears the sparkling image of a beauty which constantly reinvents itself within the heart that listens. Blessed the person who took part in this beautiful voyage.”
