Press
press
16.09.2025
Pianist Polina Osetinskaya dazzles in her Cleveland debut at Severance
CLEVELAND, Ohio – A small but wildly enthusiastic crowd showed up at Severance Music Center on Friday to hear a recital by Russian pianist Polina Osetinskaya that marked her Cleveland debut and that of Domus Virtuosa, a new artist agency and production initiative founded by Clevelander Svetlana Stolyarova.
Not your usual piano recital, Osetinskaya’s program was entirely devoted to transcriptions — or arrangements — of music by Johann Sebastian Bach and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
The act of repurposing existing music for different performing forces can have a range of motivations from the practical to the aesthetic. Bach needed material for his Leipzig University students to perform at Zimmermann’s Coffee House. Dance companies preparing for performances with orchestra need live rehearsal music. Virtuoso soloists need showpieces to demonstrate their prowess, and all the better if those are based on music that audiences already know to some extent.
And musicians are always looking for new ways to inject color and expressivity into their performances. In her program note for this recital, Osetinskaya wrote, “These transcriptions are so interesting for me because they inspire me to search for new colors and search for new sounds.”
The line between transcribing and arranging is easily crossed. It’s often said that arranging is more like recomposing a piece — recreating its effect rather than getting stuck on the actual notes.
Playing in a pool of overhead light, Osetinskaya visited the whole range of possibilities in five pieces by Bach transcribed — or arranged — by later hands.
The joyful Sinfonia and opening chorus of the Christmas Oratorio opened the set in keyboard versions by Asiya Korepanova, followed by the tender aria Die Seele ruht in Jesu Händen (My Soul Doth Rest in Jesus’ Keeping) from Cantata 127 in an arrangement by Harold Bauer. The challenge for the arranger here is to put the effect of each piece across without words, and Osetinskaya helped that with her nicely shaped melodic lines and phrases.
Bach’s Concerto for Four Harpsichords is itself an arrangement of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins. Florian Noack’s arrangement for solo piano follows the original more literally.
Ferruccio Busoni’s infamously romantic reimagining of the Chaconne from Partita No. 2 is more Busoni than Bach. While Osetinskaya produced some of the most delicate playing of the evening in the Noack arrangement, Busoni’s excesses invited some of the most bombastic.
After the five Bach works, played end-to-end, the audience gave the pianist a resounding ovation.
The largely Russian-speaking audience — judging from overheard conversations — reveled in Tchaikovsky’s Concert suite from the ballet “The Nutcracker,” six movements arranged on a symphonic scale by Mikhail Pletnev.
Osetinskaya brought out the individual character of each movement — the sprightly and royal March, the beautiful Tarantella, the colorful Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, the grand Intermezzo, the spinning Russian Trepak and solid Chinese Dance, culminating in the emotional — if a bit too showy — Pas de deux.
Tchaikovsky really did write some great tunes, as the pianist also proved in Samuil Feinberg’s arrangement of the Scherzo from Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique). And some challenging technical passages as well. The performance took flight from the start, and only toward the end did Osetinskaya’s jaw-dropping digital technique begin to yield to fatigue.
Flowers and ovations led to a beautifully understated encore: Bist du bei Mir from Anna Magdalena Bach’s famous notebook, tastefully decorated by Osetinskaya.
By Daniel Hathaway for Cleveland Classical
All materials of the “Press” section →
Not your usual piano recital, Osetinskaya’s program was entirely devoted to transcriptions — or arrangements — of music by Johann Sebastian Bach and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
The act of repurposing existing music for different performing forces can have a range of motivations from the practical to the aesthetic. Bach needed material for his Leipzig University students to perform at Zimmermann’s Coffee House. Dance companies preparing for performances with orchestra need live rehearsal music. Virtuoso soloists need showpieces to demonstrate their prowess, and all the better if those are based on music that audiences already know to some extent.
And musicians are always looking for new ways to inject color and expressivity into their performances. In her program note for this recital, Osetinskaya wrote, “These transcriptions are so interesting for me because they inspire me to search for new colors and search for new sounds.”
The line between transcribing and arranging is easily crossed. It’s often said that arranging is more like recomposing a piece — recreating its effect rather than getting stuck on the actual notes.
Playing in a pool of overhead light, Osetinskaya visited the whole range of possibilities in five pieces by Bach transcribed — or arranged — by later hands.
The joyful Sinfonia and opening chorus of the Christmas Oratorio opened the set in keyboard versions by Asiya Korepanova, followed by the tender aria Die Seele ruht in Jesu Händen (My Soul Doth Rest in Jesus’ Keeping) from Cantata 127 in an arrangement by Harold Bauer. The challenge for the arranger here is to put the effect of each piece across without words, and Osetinskaya helped that with her nicely shaped melodic lines and phrases.
Bach’s Concerto for Four Harpsichords is itself an arrangement of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins. Florian Noack’s arrangement for solo piano follows the original more literally.
Ferruccio Busoni’s infamously romantic reimagining of the Chaconne from Partita No. 2 is more Busoni than Bach. While Osetinskaya produced some of the most delicate playing of the evening in the Noack arrangement, Busoni’s excesses invited some of the most bombastic.
After the five Bach works, played end-to-end, the audience gave the pianist a resounding ovation.
The largely Russian-speaking audience — judging from overheard conversations — reveled in Tchaikovsky’s Concert suite from the ballet “The Nutcracker,” six movements arranged on a symphonic scale by Mikhail Pletnev.
Osetinskaya brought out the individual character of each movement — the sprightly and royal March, the beautiful Tarantella, the colorful Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, the grand Intermezzo, the spinning Russian Trepak and solid Chinese Dance, culminating in the emotional — if a bit too showy — Pas de deux.
Tchaikovsky really did write some great tunes, as the pianist also proved in Samuil Feinberg’s arrangement of the Scherzo from Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique). And some challenging technical passages as well. The performance took flight from the start, and only toward the end did Osetinskaya’s jaw-dropping digital technique begin to yield to fatigue.
Flowers and ovations led to a beautifully understated encore: Bist du bei Mir from Anna Magdalena Bach’s famous notebook, tastefully decorated by Osetinskaya.
By Daniel Hathaway for Cleveland Classical
All materials of the “Press” section →