3 Osokins

(Dzintari Concert Hall, 25 July 2019)

Sergejs Osokins’s every keystroke has a life of its own, executed nearly staccato, perfectly timed, and with just the right strength. In that, his classical piano resembles jazz piano (of Raimonds Pauls’s variety); it is decidedly twenty-first century.

There is a reason to keep performing traditional classical music, a reason that does not confuse art with a mere sport competition in the exercise of a narrow vocabulary. A musical piece is a dance whose moves the musical score can codify only roughly. Successive performers build on earlier discoveries and, by doing so, create a slightly different, ever more perfect piece.