Russian Yakov Kasman, laureate of theVan Cliburn Competition.  This magnificently gifted pianist confined himself in the Russian repertoire, with Prokofiev's Second Concerto (a dazzling cadence in the fourth movement), Moussorgsky's Paintings of an Exposition (with original ideas in the enchainements), Prokofiev's Second Sonata and Shostakovich's First Concerto, very well interpreted with its alternations of tenderness and comical winks.  A real master of performance showmanship.

- Le Figaro
January 13, 1998

Fireworks burst on and off stage Saturday night at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.  The offstage display at the end of the Pacific Symphony’s concert was expected; earlier unexpected pyrotechnics came from Russian pianist Yakov Kasman, who illuminated his performance of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerts with electrifying energy and sparkling tonal colors and followed the piece with a brittle, crackling, march from “Love for Three Oranges,” by Prokofiev.

…Kasman’s style glimmers with the best of Russian schooling: the unabashed caressing of a line, the tempo liberties that dance around a solid beat, the virile technique and voluptuous sound.

The soloist for the evening [with the Monterey Symphony] was Russian pianist, Yakov Kasman, silver medalist in the recent Van Cliburn International Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. Kasman was soloist in Prokofiev’s Third Concerto, and what a blockbuster of a performance it was!  This is quite possibly the greatest piano concerto written during the 20th century.  Piano buffs carry with them strong memories of some of the great historical performances by such artists as William Kapell and Martha Argerich.  Well, Kasman’s was another of the great ones to be remembered and cherished.  There was a rhythmic vitality and snap to Kasman’s performance that was totally compelling.  Also compelling was the sensitivity and exquisitely shaped singing quality in the heart-rending lyrical moments.  The final movement was a knockout performance that brought the audience to its feet. - Lyn Bronson, Peninsula Reviews November 16, 1998

This was a night to remember. Kasman is an artist with great musicianship and sensitivity in phrasing.  In addition, he possesses astonishing technical mastery and sheer human endurance.  His performance of the Third Piano Concerto by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943, a great piano virtuoso himself) was absolutely magnificent.

Fort Worth – Mr. Kasman’s Beethoven, volatile and thunderous, looked ahead to the big Romantic concertos, or perhaps even further to the likes of Prokofiev:  This pianist gets pretty aggressive.

He grabbed the listener's ear with the first movement's opening flourishes and held on through its fanfarelike close. Some audience members clearly felt -–but resisted – a pardonable urge to applaud.

The currents of the slow movement, one of Beethoven's most beautiful, flowed more swiftly than usual.  Particularly for the pianist, the first movements intensity carried over into the second.  Mr. Kasman never dillydallies just because he happens upon a pretty melody, and that straightforwardness is refreshing.  Still, this music, which breathes nobility, could have been a shade more relaxed.

No complaints about the last movement. Mr. Kasman bounded through it inexorably and punched it home at the end.

…Music director John Giordani and Mr. Kasman brought out the best in the orchestra.  Its playing was bright and taut.  The finale, especially, made a joyful racket.

By rights, the Steinway should have caved to its knees.

Instead, the audience rose to their feet.  They were acknowledging the dazzling mastery of pianist Yakov Kasman, who appeared in concert last Tuesday for the Englewood Performing Arts Series.

You could say he got there via Moscow Airways or by practicing very hard.  Actually he entered the grueling lists of the worldwide Tenth Van Cliburn piano competition.  Winnowed out from among scores of entries, Kasman became one of the three top finalists and won the coveted Silver Medal.

Unlike many of his peers, Kasman does not indulge in histrionics.  No fanfares, no waves.  He plunges right in, and his attack is immediately stunning.  He began with Three Fairy Tales by Nickolay Medtner, a contemporary of Rachmaninoff and Scriabin, “not well known in the States,” as he said and added that it has become something of a mission for him to play the composer’s music.  With its poetic themes and tempestuous crescendos, Medtner’s lush music is ideally suited to the pianist’s virtuoso fire-and-ice approach.
 

For an artist of Kasman’s calibre, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition could be construed as little more than a pops-type showpiece. Yet his rendition revealed even more subtleties and magnificence than expected.  Arguably, this is the most visual musical work every composed, conjuring up colors and images by the dozen.  The monumental walls of old Kiev, Oriental caravans, somber Byzantine dignitaries, darting children, all depicted in incredibly varied musical passages.  Kasman’s profound bass and crystalline trills were spellbinding.  The conclusion, with its evocation of clanging bells and the gates of the city closing, was overwhelming.

As impressive as all this was, the runs, the sweeping right hand, the downright brilliant interpretation the pianist gave Ravel’s La Valse, left Kiev, if not in the dust, certainly overshadowed.

If we were not already marveling at this blend of emotional expressiveness and technical pyrotechnics, Kasman’s rendering of Serge Prokofiev’s Sonata No. I in B-flat major proved the coup de grace.  Formidably difficult and demanding, it ranks as an enthralling benchmark for both pianist and listener.

A commanding performance.

Reports from the 10th Van Cliburn Competition stressed the range of talent in Fort Worth last summer.  Certainly it ran at least two deep, as Yakov Kasman, the silver medalist, proved Saturday with a heroic program in the acoustically lively Recital Hall of the year-old Performing Arts Center at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut.

Indeed, the attractive 250-seat room was almost too lively for a pianist of Kasman’s energy and power.  There was nothing bombastic here, but Kasman’s response to some rather extreme music was appropriately unrestrained in sound or spirit.

The 30-year-old Russian began a strenuous Rachmaninoff first half with two of the Opus 39 Etudes-Tableaux, No. 1 in C minor and No. 9 in D.  He grabbed attention immediately, as anyone with the fingers for these pieces must, and sustained his hold through breathless pacing and sheer élan.

In a well-considered account of the D-minor Sonata, Kasman demonstrated the effectiveness of some original ideas about the workings of inner voices, as well as the requisite turbulence.  In the slow movement—Rachmaninoff’s portrait of Faust’s Marguerite—Kasman produced a murmurous, Debussyan flow of color and point every bit as amazing as the torrents of fiercely articulated notes in the outer movements.

His approach to Haydn might not have pleased a period purist, but there was clarity and grace in his playing of the Sonata in G, Hob. XVI:40, to complement a paradoxically solemn sense of its quirkiness.  In the first of several abruptly closed pieces on the second half, Kasman dashed down the ending into nothing.  He may have thought it understated or he may have been trying to beat the quick applause of his clap-happy audience, but the effect seemed perfunctory.

It would have been a brave terpsichorean who attempted to dance to Brahms’ Opus 39 Waltzes, particularly as extravagantly contoured by Kasman.  But what my have been problematic to the feet was pure pleasure to the ear, more languid song than lilting dance.

That was hardly true of Stravinsky’s Three Movements from “Petrouchka,” all steely rhythm and kinetic energy in Kasman’s hands, with the left often overwhelming the right.  His contrasts were sharp, however, and the clangor purposefully deployed.