The greatest pianist of our time

True genius exists beyond affection. You don't have to like it: you just fall down on your knees and thank God it exists - which is roughly how I feel about the genius (no other word will do) of Evgeny Kissin's recital at Wigmore Hall on Monday. It was utterly extraordinary; not always likeable, but heavy with the sense - as Kissin's concerts are - of being history as it happens. I could see myself boring imaginary grandchildren with old man's memories of being there in '98. And meanwhile, I've spent the past few days carrying the imprint of his playing like a germ in my ear: a constant presence, ineradicable, worrying, uncomfortable.

The discomfort was mostly because this was a small-hall recital given with a big-hall mentality. It's not that Kissin is flamboyant on the platform - quite the opposite. At 27, he still has the manner of a cruelly introverted child. But the intensity and fierceness of attack is startling; and, at the Wigmore, the result was like a lion let loose in someone's sitting-room. It was a touch unnerving in a Chopin programme.

What we had were the 24 Preludes, the F-sharp major Barcarolle, and the B-flat minor Funeral March Sonata: all well-known, pop-repertory pieces. But Kissin's readings challenge you to know them differently; and I'm not sure I was up to it in the Preludes, which encompassed rare extremeties of tempo and dynamic. There were times - in nos 3, 8 and 16 - where the pace was so fast that rhythm dissolved into texture, movement into semi-stasis. Then there was the question of weight - which came by the kilo whenever he encountered a pesante marking. It contributed to the almost childlike quality with which he separated the voices in, say, no 9, to let you know (at volume) which had the tune.

But having listed my complaints, I have to say that this was still among the most impressive live performances I've heard all year. Kissin plays so fast because he can, and with a brilliantly articulated elegance which takes your breath away. His command of colour is dazzling. And for all the heaviness, he finds a true, spare pathos where it's needed. In the Sonata's Funeral March, the tread of left-hand chords was cleaner and more open than you'd dare expect, and with a magical transformation into the middle section. The presto finale - an oddly fleeting postscript to the piece at the best of times - passed like a gentle breeze. The encores, gummily announced in Kissin's automaton voice - "A Waltz ... by Chopin", "A Polonaise ... by Chopin", "A Scherzo ... by Chopin", included at least one item, the Polonaise, that was sheer perfection. As good as it gets, if not better.

I should also add that behind this concert lay a touching human- interest story which proves, mercifully, that there is human interest in Kissin's otherwise piano-driven life. Some years ago, he had a letter from a stranger which said: we share a name, are we related? The writer was one Lord Kissin, a financier and former Russian-Jewish refugee. It turned out that they were, distantly, related. And across all barriers of age and culture, they developed a bizarrely close, quasi-familial relationship. Lord Kissin died last year, aged 85. The concert was young Kissin's tribute.

The Wigmore celebrated another anti-ageist friendship last weekend when the very established Konzertmeister of the Vienna Philharmonic, Reiner Kuchl, and the much younger (though already eminent) British cellist Paul Watkins gave a joint recital of duets and solos. They met a couple of years ago, but this was their first public performance a deux. And though some of it didn't work, some of it was superb. Kuchl's unaccompanied Bach was deeply un-baroque; though maybe it's how you would play Bach if you were the Konzertmeister of the VPO. And the eternal problem with the Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello is to make the instruments sound self-sufficient and not like a piano trio with a missing Steinway. Here, I missed the Steinway terribly. But Kodaly's Opus 7 Duo was magnificent, with an ensemble as immaculate as it was vigorous and vital. Both the players had that sense of an authentic, raunchy, central European bite. And it bit hard and strong with Watkins's cello, which is a modern instrument made by his own father and possessed of a sound that might not be Strad quality, but makes a viable alternative.

Rimsky-Korsakov is getting a good run for his roubles in London at the moment: The Golden Cockerel opens next week at Sadler's Wells, and a short South Bank festival organised by the LPO has just finished. On Sunday, it featured a concert performance of the rare one-act opera Kaschey the Immortal which, like most of Rimsky's stage works, is the sort of panto- fantasy that makes him popular at Christmas, but otherwise undervalued by comparison with Musorgsky. Musorgsky, people tell you, got to grips with epic history and real characters. Rimsky lived in Never Never Land. And Kaschey doesn't do a lot to challenge that belief.

It's a decorative romance, with a story similar to Stravinsky's Firebird, richly orchestrated and of interest mainly for its atmospherically chromatic evocation of a magic world. For this performance, Alexander Lazarev conducted a rent-a-Russian cast of Bolshoi and Kirov singers. They were led by Vladimir Kudryashov, a fiercely resinous tenor with projection like a flying razor, and Marina Shaguch, a soprano known for her distinguished work with Gergiev, but not so distinguished here.

Finally, the Spitalfields Winter Festival has been running this week, with a roster of choral events that included, on Wednesday, singers from the London Oratory in music by Britten and Warlock. Most of it turned out to be unison singing from the Oratory Junior Choir, which was charming and disciplined, but no great catch on the ear, except for a few items from Britten's bottom drawer. His early carol "The Birds" is an assured little piece that ends, determinedly and effectively, in the wrong key.

Otherwise, the interest was a group of lay clerks from the Oratory singing two of Britten's canticles. The Journey of the Magi is, I think, one of the composer's few failures in text-setting: a fussy response to TS Eliot's words that pours over throwaway asides and only catches their original, ironic wryness in a surely unintended similarity to barbershop-blocked harmonies. Abraham and Isaac is an infinitely better piece. And through the big, black, candle-lit immensity of Christ Church, Spitalfields, it carried with a haunting power: evocatively done by pianist Patrick Russill, tenor Andrew Carwood, and a good young countertenor, Simon Baker, who looked terrified, but sounded wonderful. I couldn't work out whether it was nerves or acting. Either way, it was a paragon of boyish sacrifice.