Vsevolod Zavidov Plays Rachmaninoff

The debut album of Russian piano phenomenon Vsevolod Zavidov was keenly awaited, and doesn’t disappoint. It’s an all-Rachmaninoff programme, and in the three movements from Bach’s Violin Partita No. 3 (played in Rachmaninoff’s own arrangement), Zavidov parades wit and diablerie, along with needle-point fingerwork, in the opening “Prelude”. In the Op. 33 Études-tableaux Zavidov displays glistening virtuoso credentials in the helter-skelter right-hand runs of No. 5 and conjures swirling storm-clouds of tone in the tumultuous No. 8. But it’s perhaps in the Variations on a Theme of Corelli, one of Rachmaninoff’s most emotionally complex pieces, where Zavidov (aged 20 at the time of recording) impresses most. His lightness of touch in the tiptoe Variation II is a mercurial delight, while the reflective Variations XIV and XV bring a delicate sense of poetry to the surface. Zavidov’s own transcription of Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise concludes this impressive recital.