Valery Vladimirovich Kastelsky |

Valery Kastelsky

Music lovers often meet this pianist on radio and television programs. This type of concert performance requires promptness, rapid accumulation of a new repertoire. And Kastelsky meets these requirements. Reviewing the Moscow concert of the pianist from the works of Schubert and Liszt, M. Serebrovsky emphasizes: “The choice of program is very typical for Kastelsky: firstly, his predilection for the work of romantics is known, and secondly, the vast majority of the works performed in the concert were performed by the pianist for the first time, which speaks of his constant desire to update and expand his repertoire.”

“His artistic manner,” L. Dedova and V. Chinaev write in “Musical Life,” is captivatingly plastic, cultivating the beauty and expressiveness of the piano sound, is always recognizable, whether the pianist performs Beethoven or Chopin, Rachmaninov or Schumann … In the art of Kastelsky one feels the best traditions of domestic pianism. The sound of his piano, permeated with cantilena, is soft and deep, at the same time capable of being light and transparent.”

The works of Schubert, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, Scriabin are constantly present on the concert posters of Kastelsky, although he often also refers to the music of Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Prokofiev, Khrennikov and other composers. At the same time, the pianist repeatedly performed new compositions by Soviet authors of the younger generation, including the Ballad Sonata by V. Ovchinnikov and the Sonata by V. Kikta.

As for Kastelsky’s path to the wide stage, it is generally typical of most of our concert artists. In 1963, the young musician graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in the class of G. G. Neuhaus, under the guidance of S. G. Neuhaus completed a postgraduate course (1965) and succeeded three times at international competitions – the Chopin in Warsaw (1960, sixth prize), the name M. Long-J. Thibault in Paris (1963, fifth prize) and in Munich (1967, third prize).

Grigoriev L., Platek Ya., 1990