After the brilliant Mendelssohn came the relatively quiet lull of Rachmaninoff’s Étude -Tableau in A minor, [..]Op. 39, No. 2. This is a piece which, though emotionally powerful with its slow trance-like minor triplets, is extremely hard to sustain for many artists. What impressed one about Ivan Gusev’s performance was that it had the perfect spaciousness for its long introspective opening – and yet without ever dropping the thread of continuity that holds the listener. He demonstrated excell...
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