Above and featured: Pianist and composer Teodor Doré made his Sydney and Sydney Opera House debut this week performing his Rachmaninoff Variations concept concert on solo piano.
There are many ways to pay tribute to the past and important figures in it. In the Arts, being inspired to create something new and perform this concept live as well as in recording has to be up there with the highest form of tribute one can pay.
Teodor Doré, expat Russian pianist and composer of music with a thoroughly modern bent, has done just that. His hommage to composer and superstar pianist Rachmaninoff uses creativity, composition and musical re-imagining as key elements of his tribute to the nineteenth century great.
In a life that mirrors Rachmaninoff somewhat, Doré has shown resilience when leaving his Russian homeland to continue artistic life overseas. Not in exile like the Romantic master but still surviving in London as a working composer and pianist, touring to USA and elsewhere globally, this artist’s output with signature accent sees him creating, sharing and inspiring musicians and audiences alike with his creations and concerts.
The ‘Rachmaninoff Variations’ – alluding to the solo piano masterpieces from the Russian composer, is in fact a concert programme of Doré’s musical reimagining of preludes and song by Sergei Rachmaninoff, plus selections from Teodor Doré’s extensive discography. Some five albums of Doré’s original piano and chamber ensemble works exist on digital platforms. In the Sydney Opera House concert debut, all music – now in solo piano versions- reached us with a highly engaging feel. Each bracket of works was attractively described in spoken commentary prior to its performance.
Above: Global live and recorded artist Teodor Doré performed many of his previously recorded works and gave interesting insights and introductions to each bracket of works played.
The four ‘variations ‘ on Rachmaninoff works opening the concert strip works from Opus 3 (the famous Prelude in C sharp minor) back to bare bones and this modern composer’s elegant, atmospheric and very now-sounding music is set inside the preludes or songs without words in a glistening wash. the transformation of Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G major
This music is highly original. We heard in the variations a wealth of swirling harmonies, gentle eloquence, a multitude of nuance and rewarding splashes of Rachmaninoff-esque bravura. I was reminded of modern composers drawn to the stillness and moodiness of the piano such as Lodovico Einaudi- but here the outbursts of keyboard virtuosity and a lot more intense as nineteenth century flourishes elaborate on Einaudi’s rocking lyricism.
No less than 12 individual pieces followed the Rachmaninoff reinventions. Played in 3 sets of four pieces we heard the composer-pianist elaborate in these works on themes such as nature (the sea), including a beautiful range of sentiment. ‘Sleeping Beauty’ was a particularly penetrating vignette here. The next set included a ‘Fantasy impromptu’, utilising a florid left hand part reminiscent of many Romantic pianist-composers such as Chopin with a new-age cavalcade of keyboard gesturing above.
The final set of original compositions paid tribute to world music, immigrant musicians everywhere and the joyous exchange of music between cultures, and the unifying power of musical sharing. Compositions such as ‘Lebanese Waltz’ and ‘Spring in Barcelona, heard now on solo piano were varied, clever miniatures capturing a moment and place vividly.
Teodor Doré’s tribute-plus concept is a programme that has been recorded at London’s Abbey Road Studios. It sold out a Carnegie Hall concert in the USA. This week the programme’s svelte, colourful atmospheres were accompanied on a moonlit night with lightning flashes outside the Opera House and glinting reflections of the fiull moon on the water.
The seventy minutes of earnest, enthusiastic music from this humanitarian and rejoicer-in-humans both past plus present melded into our antipodean now. Some relaxing, gentle-giants of keyboard invention drifted with directness our way as this composer commented on music and musicians in this with fond, joyous and highly creative concert.
