Russian-bred, Brussels-based pianist Polina Leschenko joins Canada’s Marc-André Hamelin as an eloquent advocate for the piano music of Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951) in an enchanting album of Russian solo pieces from the Belgian Avanti Classics label.
Joy No. 1 on this album is Leschenko’s blend of virtuosity and velvet touch.
Leschenko does, magnificently.
Joy No. 2 is hearing music not performed or recorded often from a golden period of piano performance.
The album starts off with with two confections — concert-encore waltzes by Mischa Levitzki (1898-1941), a Ukrainian pianist of the Ignaz Paderewski school of showmanship, then turns to the difficult Piano Sonata No. 2 by Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943), in the version edited by Vladimir Horowitz.
It’s a big, three-movement work that stretches to 22 minutes, often with abrupt changes of tempo and mood, negotiated seemingly effortlessly by the pianist. My only quibble is hearing thumping noises — Leschenko stomping her left foot, perhaps? — during some louder passages.
The album closes with the first cycle of Forgotten Melodies by Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951). These are eight short-ish pieces (the longest is the first, the “Sonata-Reminiscenza,” at 13 minutes) that reveal new wonders with each listen. Medtner was a master contrapuntalist, and there’s much craft to admire in these impeccably designed pieces — rendered with delicate force.
Leschenko is not really known on this side of the Atlantic, yet deserves to be — as much as the music that she has recorded on this album.
For not much more information on the album, click here.
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Here, for fun, is a magnificent performance featuring Leschenko and Maurisio Vallina in the Suite No. 1 for piano duo by Anton Arensky (1861-1906), recorded at Martha Argerich’s festival in Lugano 10 years ago by Italian Swiss Radio and Television (RTSI):
John Terauds