This week sees the return of Ukrainian violist and conductor Maxim Rysanov at the helm of I Musici. After two concerts rather dedicated to the music of the XXe century, it devotes its program to Mozart.
Maxim Rysanov is, at I Musici, the counterpart of Leonardo García Alarcón for Les Violons du Roy and of what Lorenzo Coppola was for Arion: a sort of “catalyst joker” who manages to bring out sometimes unsuspected musical resources.
The first meeting took place in May 2018. We came out of it summarizing that, if we were expecting a very good concert, nothing prepared us for such a shock. And we were already drawing a parallel at the time with the “sensory and emotional dazzling” of a recent concert conducted by García Alarcón.
quasi-hypnosis
p>Aged 45, born in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Maxim Rysanov studied the viola with Maria Sitkovskaya in Moscow and then John Glickman at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.
He first made a name for himself as one of the violists of the generation following that of Nobuko Imai, Yuri Bashmet, Kim Kashkashian and Gérard Caussé — Tabea Zimmermann being between these elders and the blessed trio of forties Maxim Rysanov, Antoine Tamestit and Lawrence Power. Unlike Tamestit and Power, Rysanov very quickly turned to conducting, which he also studied at the Guildhall School, later perfecting his skills with Gennadi Rojdestvenski and the famous pedagogue Jorma Panula.
After his first meeting with I Musici, Rysanov returned in December 2019, a renewed miracle, where we wrote: “The fascination that this musician exercises is exceptional […] This ascendancy, a quasi-hypnosis, Rysanov also seems to exert on the instrumentalists, who follow him with generosity and a quest for precision. »
For this 2023 vintage, Rysanov brings us one of the most famous works involving the viola: the Symphonie concertante for violin and viola K. 364 of Mozart, which he will play in duet with the violinist Julie Triquet. In the second part, he chose to direct the Symphony No. 29 of Mozart, inserting between two the Variations on a Ukrainian Folk Song Op. 9 by Malcolm Arnold. This is the orchestration performed in 1993 by Roger Steptoe of a piano work from 1944, all the more symbolic in these painful times as, that year, the composer’s brother, a fighter pilot, died on a mission and that Malcolm Arnold, until then a conscientious objector, has enlisted in the army.
Maxim Rysanov and I Musici will perform at Salle Pierre-Mercure at 7:30 p.m. Thursday evening. Our conclusion from the 2019 report? “Maxim Rysanov is a very great musician. It is time for the public to realize this and come en masse to his concerts. »