Nikolai Lugansky

Liszt:Piano Works Naïve- Ambroisie AM 205***

Russian pianist Nikolai Lugansky’s début on the Naïve- Ambroisie label is also his first disc to be devoted entirely to music by Liszt. Lugansky is a formidable technician, and, in a straightforward sense, there’s not a note out of place in his demanding programme, which runs to a selection from the Transcendental Studies (including Feux follets), La Campanella and the transcription of the Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. But Lugansky can also strike an attitude that seems a little too cool for Liszt. For instance, he takes an approach of virtuoso precision and power to Les jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este and loses out on the fantastical elements of watery pictorialism on the piano. You could see his playing as a sort of an antidote to romantic excesses, but the element of dispassion is also the very factor which limits the impact of the music-making. See url.ie/8fjv