March 23, 2016 The young Bulgarian-born pianist Viktor Valkov displayed remarkable quickness, grace and ferocity in an appearance with Camerata San Antonio regulars Matthew Zerweck (violin) and Ken Freudigman (cello), March 20 in the concert hall at the University of the Incarnate Word. The concert, one of the year’s strongest thus far, opened with Franz Joseph Haydn’s Piano Trio in E (Hob. XV, 28) and closed with Beethoven’s magnificent “Archduke” Trio in B-flat. Between them came Edvard Grieg’s Cello Sonata. Mr. Valkov has become well known in San Antonio as a frequent partner of cellist Lachezar Kostov, a fellow Bulgarian on the roster of the San Antonio Symphony. Together or apart, both have proven to be musicians of extraordinary intensity, charisma and technical aplomb. (They’ll appear together on a Tuesday Musical Club concert April 12 at 2 pm in Christ Episcopal Church. The previous evening, Mr. Kostov joins the superb pianist Warren Jones and clarinetist Ilya Shterenberg on the Olmos Ensemble’s season finale, April 11 at 7:30 pm in First Unitarian Universalist Church.)  Haydn’s Piano Trio in E, published in 1797 as part of the composer’s last set of three such works, is mainly the piano’s show. That instrument even gets a long unaccompanied passage in the central allegretto, which looks backward to baroque style. The performance was robust and taut all around. Mr. Valkov impressed with his crisply delineated fast runs in the opening allegro, his playfulness in the finale, and his well-shaped phrases throughout. Oh, and something hard to define but unmistakabe: Call it “presence.” His penchant for a wide dynamic range sometimes turned a forte into a fortissimo that overpowered the strings (here and in the Beethoven, as well) but that’s a fairly minor complaint.  Beethoven’s “Archduke” allowed more scope for Mr. Valkov’s interpretive range — sentimental lyricism in the opening statement, red-blooded muscularity in the scherzo, sublime prayerfulness in the andante cantabile, bounding youthfulness in the finale. Beethoven also gave Mr. Zerweck and Mr. Freudigman more to do, and they did it with their customary panache.  Grieg’s Cello Sonata doesn’t have a lot to say but says it with great fervency, in an overstuffed Romantic style. Mr. Freudigman and Mr. Valkov seemed to like the piece, however, and they gave it a big, committed performance. Mike Greenberg   

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Viktor Valkov