ON A blisteringly hot day I imagined the Wigmore would be, at best, half-full and half- attentive for a Radio 3 lunchtime concert. Clearly I had reckoned without the Trpceski effect. The Macedonian pianist may still be in his mid- twenties, and not much more than five years into his career. But discerning music-lovers already revere him, and they packed the place to the rafters.
Rightly so. Trpceski has, literally at his fingertips, a magical combination of power and poetry, sense and sensibility. It’s that last quality, particularly, that marks him out from the other young lions of the keyboard. He may conjure extraordinary audacities — supplying an amazing climax to Rachmaninov’s song-transcription Daisies, for instance, where he brushed up the keys like a silk scarf dusting a glockenspiel, then left the harmonics shimmering in a half-pedal before resolving the unanswered question with the most delicate of final touches. But nothing is ever done for sensation’s sake. Though often mustering rich, cascading sonorities, Trpceski is far more often intimate and nuanced than barnstorming and rhetorical.
Here he divided his energies between Chopin and Rachmaninov. The opening Chopin Polonaise (F sharp, Op 44) had a few untidy splashes in its epic moments, but it seemed that Trpceski was disconcerted by a squeaky piano stool — which, indeed, continued to emit strange whimpers through the recital.
No matter; he quickly displayed the compelling hallmarks of his style: light but devastatingly punchy octaves; well delineated rhythms (he can pounce on chords with a drum-like vigour when he chooses); a gossamer touch in lyrical episodes; and an impeccable ear for internal balance. One hears warhorses such as Chopin’s B Minor Scherzo and Rachmaninov’s B flat Prelude reduced so often to near- incomprehensible ivory-pummelling that Trpceski’s performances seemed like the lifting of a dense fog from a half-remembered landscape.
Yet there is nothing contrived about his concern for clarity. The Rachmaninov Prelude, especially, was like a big bang of energy, miraculously sustained over three minutes.
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Most bewitching of all, however, is his natural gift for paragraphing the music: giving shape and meaning to long, complex passages by varying the flow and dynamics with what seems to be complete spontaneity. So many young soloists tie themselves in psychological knots trying too hard to express emotion — or rather, to fake it. Trpceski is the real deal. A pianistic talent in a thousand.