Nicolai Lugansky’s solo disc debut for Erato is more than just another recording of the Chopin etudes by a new virtuoso on the block. He’s got fingers, to be sure, but also a mind, an ear, and more than a little imagination. The pianist guides Op. 10 No. 1’s arpeggio sequences with a pliable, singing bass line, and offsets Op. 10 No. 2’s murmuring right-hand 16th-notes with intelligently shaped left-hand chords. Similarly, your ear gravitates more toward Op. 10 No. 7’s playful left-hand accents and dynamic jolts rather than to Luagnsky’s suave dispatch of the right hand’s rapid double notes. He breezes through Op. 10 No. 8 like the featherweight champion of the world, and betrays his Russian roots by making an unwritten diminuendo on the last phrase (an effect made famous by Horowitz, and abhorred by purists).
Highlighting the Op. 25 set are Lugansky’s silken traversals of the etudes in thirds, sixths, and octaves, and a “Winter Wind” etude where the taxing right hand patterns emerge with rare melodic direction, like Van Cliburn’s matchless rendition. Of the three Nouvelle Etudes, I’m most taken with Lugansky’s lovely rhetorical touches and alluring interplay of voices between the left hand duplets and right hand triplets. Traces of self-conscious rubato seep through the slow, lyrical selections, but few pianists play all of Chopin’s studies equally well. Watch for this pianist.
