I can hardly believe
that this young pianist was born in
Bratislava after my first visit there
which only seems like yesterday – well
alright, the day before yesterday! I
feel very humble when I examine what
he has achieved in under twenty years
against what I have in the same period.
He is a remarkable and extremely talented
young man and brave to take on, for
what I assume is his debut album (?),
Carnaval, a work that demands such a
great deal of the pianist to bring it
off successfully. I remember one of
those excellent BBC Radio 3 Saturday
morning programmes several years ago
that compared the then available versions
and found various critical things to
say about one by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
no less. However, he was often criticised
for playing that was described as cold
and aloof, leading one critic to call
him "the great mortician".
Carnaval is a whimsical piece and needs
careful handling to ensure there is
just the right balance between whimsy
and control. This is necessary to capture
the magical nature of the pieces. Perhaps
for someone with Michelangeli’s reputation
for a cold approach Carnaval was not
a good choice. Here I must apologise
for I have only one other version of
Carnaval on disc – that of Rachmaninov
on a recording made in 1929 so I have
to say it’s not a very fair comparison,
but it is telling nevertheless. For
someone once described as "a six
foot long scowl" he treats this
work with supreme gentleness and masterful
control with the result that it is an
almost flawless performance. He caresses
the keys when it’s called for and hits
them with a fiery intensity at moments
that demand it and a memorable experience
it certainly is. However, the young
Cizmarovic makes a good fist of this
work and he has also learned when to
unleash his passion and when to keep
it tamed though sometimes he loses out
to quietness when a dainty fairylike
approach would have been more suitable.
It must be difficult to show the difference
between the two.
His approach to Liszt
though finds him on a surer footing
with passion unbridled and showing his
power to do the necessary when called
for by this composer’s music. When I
listened to his performance of Tarantella
from "Les années de pelerinage"
I was very taken by some really fine
playing. His performance of the "Mephisto
Waltz No.1" and the "Hungarian
Rhapsody No.2" are similarly impressive.
He can play fast and furious and it
makes for exhilarating listening. At
only twenty he certainly has a tremendous
future ahead of him – I wonder if we’ll
see him at the Leeds Piano Competition?
Steve Arloff
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Jakub Cizmarovic (piano) 
