{"id":8226,"date":"2012-12-05T09:12:52","date_gmt":"2012-12-05T14:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=8226"},"modified":"2012-12-05T09:12:52","modified_gmt":"2012-12-05T14:12:52","slug":"daily-album-review-20-russian-solo-piano-magic-from-polina-leschenko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/12\/05\/daily-album-review-20-russian-solo-piano-magic-from-polina-leschenko\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily album review 20: Russian solo piano magic from Polina Leschenko"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Marco Borggreve photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Russian-bred, Brussels-based pianist Polina Leschenko joins Canada’s Marc-Andr\u00e9 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.<\/p>\n

Joy No. 1 on this album is Leschenko’s blend of virtuosity and velvet touch.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Two of the three pianist-composers represented on this disc filled their music will all sorts of technical hurdles, making it easy for a player to treat them as chevaux de bataille. It’s much more difficult to find the inner lyricism.<\/p>\n

Leschenko does, magnificently.<\/p>\n

Joy No. 2 is hearing music not performed or recorded often from a golden period of piano performance.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> by Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943), in the version edited by Vladimir Horowitz.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The album closes with the first cycle of Forgotten Melodies<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

For not much more information on the album, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Here, for fun, is a magnificent performance featuring Leschenko and Maurisio Vallina in the Suite No. 1<\/em> 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):<\/p>\n