REVIEW: Russian Pianist Dmitry Shishkin Makes His Impressive La Jolla Debut

Ken Herman
San Diego Story

October 28, 2025

The La Jolla Music Society launched the new season’s Discovery Series Sunday with a solo recital by the young Russian pianist Dmitry Shishkin.

Having won honors in numerous competitions—notably first place in the 2018 Geneva International Music Competition and second place in the 2019 XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition—the 33-year-old virtuoso arrived with impressive credentials. His online bio flaunts the critical observation of his playing as “electrifying and flamboyant,” and I am happy to report that his performance lived up to this claim.

With the exception of Shishkin’s opening selection, César Franck’s Prelude, Fugue and Variations, Op. 18, his program was devoted to music by Russian composers from Tchaikovsky to Prokofiev.

Franck’s Prelude, Fugue and Variations is one of his most familiar organ works, and I must confess this transcription by M. Bauer is the first time I have heard a piano version of the piece. Shishkin gave the composer’s soaring themes their due and kept the busy accompanying arpeggios properly subdued, although his assertive digital attacks of the melody notes compromised the flow of the composer’s arched legato lines. His athletic technique certainly flourished, however, in his two Tchaikovsky selections, Dumka, Op. 59 and Scherzo à la Russe, Op. 1, No. 1.

A suite of seven Preludes selected from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Op. 23 and Op. 32 Preludes revealed a broader range of Shishkin’s technique. In the F-sharp Minor, Op 23, No. 1, he skillfully crafted its moody, mysterious opening section to expand into an astonishing climax that quickly subsided into the calm of the Prelude’s opening. The dark, brooding A Minor, Op. 32, No. 8, probed the piano’s lowest regions, although it demanded the soloist’s most adroit cross-hand figures. A compelling tone painting, the highly dramatic B Minor Prelude, Op. 32, No. 10, based on Arnold Böcklin’s evocative painting The Homecoming, revealed Shishkin’s technical prowess as he navigated its complexities with apparent ease.

Shishkin gave the nascent modernism of Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No.2 in D Minor a good run for the money. He subdued the skittering, rapid figurations of the long, demanding opening movement and tossed off with equal finesse the snarky “Allegro marcato” motifs of the brief “Scherzo.” The third movement “Andante” spooled out its angst-driven “Andante,” adding to the program’s surfeit of Russian brooding, and Shishkin reveled in the wild perpetual motion motifs of the “Vivace” finale .

His encore was another Scherzo by Prokofiev.

This recital was presented by the La Jolla Music Society at La Jolla’s Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center on October 26, 2025.