Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov

Wagner's genius is often associated with his unique feeling for orchestration. Yet the transcriptions and paraphrases for piano solo recorded here lay bare the beauty and boldness of his harmonic language, with an evocative power unrivalled at the time. Nikolai Lugansky, at once narrator and virtuoso, immerses us in a world where the heroes of legend tell us - and with what loftiness of spirit! - of the torments and aspirations of humanity.

Following on from his formidable complete recording of the Preludes, Nikolai Lugansky now immerses us in two more major cycles by Rachmaninoff, the Études-tableaux. Like Chopin and Liszt, the Russian composer here transcends every technical difficulty to make room for emotion alone. At once poet and virtuoso, Nikolai Lugansky is unmatched in his ability to do justice to this prodigious musical kaleidoscope.

When Nikolai Kapustin’s music was discovered by a wider audience in the West, it certainly came as a shock: Who was this Soviet composer, whose music mostly resembled an Oscar Peterson improvisation, but was notated in heavily detailed scores? As we continue to discover more of his music, not least on this new recording, Kapustin shows how he developed his style subtly and steadily, always moving with the times. As the music that influenced him changed, so did his own. The development of Big Band Jazz can be traced in his work and, in that sense, Kapustin never settled on one style, except that he fused jazz and classical music so inseparably in the first place.

Wagner's genius is often associated with his unique feeling for orchestration. Yet the transcriptions and paraphrases for piano solo recorded here lay bare the beauty and boldness of his harmonic language, with an evocative power unrivalled at the time. Nikolai Lugansky, at once narrator and virtuoso, immerses us in a world where the heroes of legend tell us - and with what loftiness of spirit! - of the torments and aspirations of humanity.

Given the paucity of César Franck's piano music on disc, Nikolai Lugansky's focus on this composer is to be commended. On his third release for harmonia mundi, the Russian pianist reveals an organ master strongly attached to the musical forms inherited from J.S. Bach: the prelude, the fugue, and the chorale. Translated to the piano keyboard, Franck's music, with its expansively conceived structures, requires a completely fresh approach that puts the greatest performers to the test: here, Lugansky took on an additional challenge by preparing his own transcription (a brilliant one, at that!) of Franck's celebrated Choral pour grand orgue No.2.

Known for his dazzling performances of music by Franz Liszt and Sergey Rachmaninov, Russian virtuoso Nikolai Lugansky presents his first recording of the two piano concertos of Frédéric Chopin, which are much quieter than his usual fare. Indeed, the music seems quite intimate and almost chamber-like on this 2013 Naïve Ambroisie release, due to Lugansky's controlled and fairly introspective playing.

Nikolai Demidenko is a celebrated piano virtuoso, considered a leading exponent of the Russian school of playing. His blend of technical brilliance and musical vision have earned him consistent raves since he first emerged on the international scene in the mid-1980s, and he has become a musical fixture in his adopted home of Great Britain, where he gained citizenship in 1995. Demidenko began playing before the age of five, learning on his grandfather's old, beaten-up piano. By the age of six, he was a student of Anna Kantor (Evgeny Kissin's teacher) at the Gnessin School of Music. An obstinate student who disliked scales and technique, Demidenko still made swift progress, and he eventually entered the Moscow Conservatory. There, he studied with Dmitri Bashkirov, whom Demidenko credits with fostering his more individual qualities as a player, as well as ironing out the remaining wrinkles in his technique. Reaching the finals of both the 1976 Montreal competition and the 1978 Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow (where he played through an acute case of the flu) served as a final springboard to professional recognition.

When Nikolai Kapustin’s music was discovered by a wider audience in the West, it certainly came as a shock: Who was this Soviet composer, whose music mostly resembled an Oscar Peterson improvisation, but was notated in heavily detailed scores? As we continue to discover more of his music, not least on this new recording, Kapustin shows how he developed his style subtly and steadily, always moving with the times. As the music that influenced him changed, so did his own. The development of Big Band Jazz can be traced in his work and, in that sense, Kapustin never settled on one style, except that he fused jazz and classical music so inseparably in the first place.

This year marks 150 years since the birth of Rachmaninov. Following on from his formidable complete recording of the Preludes, Nikolai Lugansky now immerses us in two more major cycles by the Russian composer, the Études- Tableaux.
Like Chopin and Liszt, Rachmaninov here transcends every technical difficulty to make room for emotion alone. At once poet and virtuoso, Nikolai Lugansky is unmatched in his ability to do justice to this prodigious musical kaleidoscope, a fitting tribute on the anniversary of such a celebrated artist.