Pianist will get rhapsodic

When pianist Lilya Zilberstein was a girl, teachers asked her grandmother if the child would learn to play the cello. The answer? No.

When I took examinations at the Gnessin Music School (in Moscow), the teachers asked my grandmother if I would play cello because I have wide hands. She answered, 'No, we have a piano at home, and we don't have money for a cello,' Zilberstein says.
Fans of classical piano should be grateful for that moment of frugality.

It meant the aspiring musician kept right on playing the upright piano at her grandparents' home and that, certainly in part, brought her to where she is today: a successful pianist in demand with orchestras across the globe.
Zilberstein will perform twice with the San Antonio Symphony this weekend. Under the direction of Music Director Larry Rachleff, the symphony will present Orchestral Colors and Variations.

Featuring Ottorino Respighi's The Birds and Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations, it will also showcase Zilberstein on the heart-pounding Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Sergei Rachmaninoff.
This is a reunion of sorts for Zilberstein and Rachleff, who performed a tour de force concert with the symphony in 2001.

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San Antonio Symphony

Where: Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St. When: 8 p. m. Friday-Saturday Tickets: $30-$88 at the symphony box office and Ticketmaster outlets. Call (210) 554-1010.

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Zilberstein's performance will be bracketed by two modern works, one evoking the sounds of nature, the other inspired by friendship. The Birds puts the symphony musicians through their paces to re-create the sounds of a dove, a hen, a nightingale and a cuckoo, while the evening's closing piece, Elgar's The Enigma Variations, is 14 variations on one theme with each iteration suggesting the personality and creativity of one of the composer's friends. Likewise, with its myriad variations, the Rachmaninoff is thematically complex and intense.

It's also virtuosic, lyrical and in the last part, diabolic, Zilberstein says. It is tricky, but I've played it many years, so I am used to it.
Zilberstein, who began playing piano at 5, knew the instrument would be her career when she scored first place at the 1987 Busoni Competition in Bolzano, Italy.

She embarked on her first major Western tour in 1988.
I enjoy places where I play if I can see them, Zilberstein says. If not, I cannot say, 'I was there.

' Just, 'I played there.'

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jlaster@express-news.