SERGEY KHACHATRYAN, FINE-TUNING HIS TALENT

The Washington Post
March 20, 2008 Thursday

Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan (born 1985) is hot. By age 20
he had won both the Sibelius and Queen Elizabeth competitions. He
has released several recordings of major concertos, appeared here
in 2006 at the Kennedy Center with the London Philharmonic, and has
already soloed three times with the Cleveland Orchestra. Given such a
résumé, expectations were high for his recital Tuesday night at the
Harman Center for the Arts with his pianist sister Lusine Khachatryan.

This young artist is undeniably talented. There was never the
slightest sense of difficulty on the instrument, even in the thorniest
passage-work. His slacker persona seemed to perfectly capture the irony
and alienation in Shostakovich’s late violin sonata. But for the rest,
this is a violinist who still has a lot of studying, listening and
growing to do. His style is often plodding, almost sullen (jet lag?),
and he seems at times unaware or indifferent to basic musical details.

In the Bach Sonata in C, he kept admirably precise rhythm (without
speeding up) in the Adagio, but there was no variation in character or
articulation in the extended Fuga. Voice-leading was almost nonexistent
in the Largo, and he didn’t bother with the repeats in the Allegro
assai. In the Brahms Op. 78 Sonata, his vibrato began to grate —
tense, but stopping and starting on each note. His sister had trouble
with repeated notes in the Brahms finale, but otherwise played with
accuracy and sensitivity.

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