The Piano Player

Maksim Mrvica, or simply Maksim. Listening to The Piano Player now, his 2003 album. Maksim is a great pianist; the year spent studying at the Franz Liszt Conservatoire and winning first prize at the Nikolai Rubinstein International Piano Competition says it far better than what’s contained in The Piano Player.

The album buds of with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble-Bee, transcribed in this recording for piano by Jeff Wayne. It’s a virtuosic piece, an easy showcase for Maksim himself. Rachmaninoff and Cziffra, among the greatest pianists of their century, had their own transcriptions. Maksim’s version is rather enigmatic.

Next in line is Grieg’s piano concerto, the only piano concerto by the Norwegian composer. The Piano Player opens rather closely to the original piece, but before the theme is introduced, a techno pulse overshadows the entire Scandinavian landscape and the snow cap mountains are turned into peeling plastered brickwalls with thick fluorescent gravity paint and you can almost smell tobacco and see the confused spotlight beaming over a disorganized crowd.

It was no better for Chopin’s Etude in C minor and it did no justice to the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. To be brutal, it conjured a night market feel; classical music knocked down to fit the stereos of cars with blue lights of coloured haired owners.

To be creative with classical music, try Volodos, who has a great sense of delight (and respect) improvising classical pieces (listen to his rendition of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, or the way he takes Mozart’s Turkish March and almost plays the entire piece with one hand and does something else with the other).

Vanessa Mae has her own flavour with the violin in the classical-pop crossover. Hence, The Violin Player. But a treatment of classical music from a first prize winner at the Nikolai Rubinstein International Piano competition like this certainly shows little contextual respect for any musical genre and demonstrates no originality of his own.

With due respect, Maksim is a great pianist. But about playing classical remixes to reach out to a wider audience? There should be found in him more originality and taste.