He who can do the most can do the least
From
Concertonet, January 2000
Written by Gaelle Plasseraud
Translated from the
original
French by Valour
After a recital at l’Auditorium du Louvre the
last week, Nikolai Lugansky performs here, with L’Orchestre National de
France and Christof Perick, the Fourth Piano Concerto of Rachmaninov.
Although terribly difficult, this composer’s final concerto is not a vehicle for
its soloist. The piece is thankless. Like the albatross of Baudelaire, its scale
is gigantic and, made for broad movements, it remains paralysed, nailed to the
ground. The work is persistently halted, its flights bogged down. It is
undoubtedly this impotence permeating the Concerto that renders it so
attractive and so mysterious.
Lugansky is the ideal interpreter. The playing of the pianist is of a sobriety
and an assurance rarely found in such a young interpreter. Lugansky plays the
forceful passages at the keyboard with an astonishing economy of gestures. He
begins the piece with serenity, without seeking to go beyond its limits. He is
courageously resigned to be self-effacing and hence the second movement becomes
very impressive : the pianist gives the appearance of being sincerely unable to
finish the sketched phrases. He abandons his instrument repeatedly, as if in
despair. He plays, with frankness, the hesitations in the work, and his playing
is supported by remarkable technical means.
L’Orchestre Nationale appears to take pleasure in accompanying this soloist of
quality.