Kissin's greatest strength has always been in the music of the Romantic composers, and Romantic music is characterized by its spirit of youthfulness. Romantic art was a new spring, just as the French Revolution before it, despite its later horrors, had been a re-birth and a fresh beginning. All the pieces being played by Kissin in his Taipei concert are evocations either of youthful high-spirits or of intense introspection, also a characteristic associated with the young. And Kissin himself, though now 34, is nothing if not an eternal adolescent, in the very best sense of that phrase.
He was born on Oct. 10, 1971 in Moscow. His father was an engineer and his mother a piano teacher. The story he himself tells is that, when still under two years old, he started singing, from his cot or playpen, the tunes his sister, ten years older, was playing on the piano. (At 11 months he had been able to repeat a fugue by Bach). He was taken at the age of six to a school for gifted children where, when the teachers heard his extraordinary improvisations on suggested topics such as "the dark forest" or "the bright sun," they immediately took him on. He studied there for 12 years, staying put with his original teacher rather than progressing, as would have been normal, to the Moscow Conservatory. He gave his official debut at 10, in Mozart's D Minor Piano Concerto.
Kissin has subsequently received a host of honors, including most recently Russia's much-prized Shostakovich Award in 2003, being elected an Honorary Member of London's Royal Academy of Music last year, and playing in the Opening Gala Concerts of both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic orchestras for their 2005-6 seasons.
There's a useful DVD from RCA Red Seal, dating from 1999, entitled Evgeny Kissin: The Gift of Music [RCA/BMG 09026 63609-9]. The commentary is pretentious at times, but hearing Kissin talk in English about his childhood is fascinating. A word of warning is in order, however. On my copy the subtitle options are incomplete and wrongly labeled. If you opt for Chinese you get Japanese, for Japanese German, for German French, and for French and "Off" nothing. What you can't get whatever you opt for is Chinese. Considering I bought it in Taipei earlier this month, this is, to say the least, unfortunate.
Tomorrow night's concert, on the other hand, should be flawless, and in all probability a great deal more.
Performance notes:
What: Yvgeny Kissin
Where: National Concert Hall, Taipei
When: Tomorrow at 7:30pm
Tickets: Tickets cost from NY$800 to NT$3,000
Telephone: (02) 2341 9898 or (02) 3393 9908/9
Web site: Go to www.ticket.com.tw for further information
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