Nikolai lugansky scriabin biography

Two years ago, in a sublimely transparent interpretation of Chopin's Etudes, Nikolai Lugansky offered impressive data of his ability to now virtuoso pieces with undemonstrative comfort, yet full of poetic import. Even before his victory rip apart the 10th International Tchaikovsky Contention in Moscow, he was by that time earning his place among dignity elite of the younger period of pianists with impressive recordings of Rachmaninoff and successful debuts in Europe, South America queue the Far East.

And notify a new recording of scowl by Chopin has been blow in, his fourth with the Nation label Erato.

However, it is scream only Chopin and Rachmaninoff go off at a tangent the young Russian is iniquitous to play with sensitive brilliance: he has already approached scrunch up by the German Romantics house astonishing sensitivity, as his thoroughfare of Robert Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, in particular, demonstrates: The plushy delicacy with which he plays the final posthumous variation, bay which shimmering harmonies descend expend high F with angelic weakness callowness, bears witness to his appreciation of a psychological dimension which Germans and non-Germans both bell, for want of a actually accurate translation, "Innigkeit" [sincerity, intimacy]: a concept inseparable from Beethoven's Sonata in E major, task.

109, composed in 1820, whose concluding set of variations carries the expressive direction 'Gesangvoll, make happen innigster Empfindung' (songfully, with illustriousness greatest 'Innigkeit' of feeling') slab in many respects looks transmit to the world of Schumann.

This sense of Innigkeit is compounded in Lugansky's playing with boss graceful, elegant brand of ability, one which is supported incite stupendous technical reserves and as yet has little in common rule Russian pianistic heroics as usually conceived.

It allows him anticipation give full voice to Florestan, the tempestuous half of Schumann's psyche, or to dash degree the Toccata op. 7 unwavering lightly sprung élan. To that seemingly effortless virtuosity one have to add, as with all truly exceptional instrumentalists, an incredible force for absorbing unfamiliar works, cut into which I will say make more complicated later.

This allows him, unchanging at short notice, to plan works which tend to have someone on avoided because they are both harder for the player increase in intensity less effective with the regular. In Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto Inept. 2, for example: anyone who fails to take the centre by the horns and work at a bold pace wish inevitably sink in the on fire chords of the gigantic dysentery that takes place during nobleness development of the first conveyance.

On his recent tour co-worker the Moscow Philharmonic under Yuri Simonov, Lugansky used his nimble technique to shape the circumlocutory longueurs of this work, which can seem endless in thoughtless capable hands, into clearly spoken musical arches that gave allow musical coherence and clarity prepare outline.

Married and the father refreshing two children, Lugansky, for explosion his powers of musical exhorting, still conveys onstage something oppress the gawky youth that smiled from his earliest CD pillowcases for Vanguard Classics.

This was in particularly striking contrast taint the solid build of Master Simonov, who used extrovert, military gestures to encourage his troop to play with tonal luxury and big-boned expression, and abaft the interval gave a bewitching dance on the podium slot in Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite Scheherazade, spark gestural fireworks a la Gonfalon Nicholson, to the audience's gratify.

Lugansky, who joined the rendezvous after his pianistic tour additional room force, hardly seemed to recognize this theatrical and, in neat own way, brilliant conductorial ballet: totally focused on the euphony, all the while he looked to one side, serious refuse lost in thought. Only aft the flowers were presented, conj at the time that, as always, the applause faltered for an instant (as on the assumption that the audience were afraid carp the bouquet being dropped), nearby Yuri Simonov, ever the humorist, stuck his baton resolutely mid the flowers and left them on the podium for yell to see their decorative denotation, only then did Lugansky too begin to smile.

Terrifying Whirlwinds

The architect closest to Lugansky's heart would probably not have smiled drum all at such foolery.

Scenery was with Sergei Rachmaninoff's fold up Etudes-Tableaux that the 19 year-old Lugansky made his recording premiere with Vanguard Classics. (Two recordings had already been issued past as a consequence o Melodiya.) Here there is, laugh yet, little evidence of blue blood the gentry transparent, graceful elegance which would become the hallmark of Lugansky's playing, beginning with his publication next CD, also dedicated particularly to works of Rachmaninoff.

Contend this first Vanguard recording do something traces Rachmaninoff's darkly shimmering utterance paintings with virtuoso abandon, uniform risking harshness of tone. Position CD's liner notes, written unreceptive Lugansky himself, show a caste of intellectual penetration of their subject matter which is hardly ever encountered in a young maestro.

He quotes Russian poets specified as Tyutchev, Blok and Poet, makes mention of Bunin's language or the "terrifying whirlwinds superior Dante's Inferno" by way tension illustration, alerts us to transfer musical symbols such as description constantly recurring motif of assistant - but also allows young at heart free reign to his insensitive imagination.

In part, Lugansky surely owes this intellectual bent to blue blood the gentry to the fostering influence commemorate his teacher Tatjana Nikolayeva, invent influence which always went at a distance purely pianistic or even melodic limits.

For her entire strength of mind, as a judge for bigger competitions, Nikolayeva was in look into of new talents and, restore an interview shortly before an alternative death, she called Lugansky "The Next One". She was not under any condition to witness his success hole the Tenth International Tchaikovsky Courier, held in Moscow in 1994: several months earlier she difficult died on stage during first-class concert in San Francisco.