Nikolai Lugansky - Interview, Las Palmas, 1998
Interview by Luisa del Rosario
Originally published in Spanish, in Mundoclasico.com
Translation by Concepcion Diaz
Edited by Valour
Pianist Nikolai Lugansky, who received us in a hotel in Las Palmas, plays before the audience in an overwhelming manner. His work has strength and security, but outside the concert hall he seems to be shy, reserved and even somewhat nervous.
Q: You have won important piano competitions, like Tbilisi or the Tchaikovsky
in Moscow, but you have said on several occasions that you felt physically ill
in these sorts of competitions. Is the effort worthwhile in the end ?
NL: Well, competitions don’t bring anything to the music in itself, and
yet they are part of the system, so you must participate if you want to be part
of it. On the other hand, even with this negative aspect, contests give
you celebrity. The audience gets to know you because of the fame they give, and
that means concerts.
Q: But isn’t that dangerous? Doesn’t one run the risk of becoming only a
competitive musician ?
NL: That is possible. Sometimes you don’t get too many concerts, which
means having no job. So unfortunately there are people who are obliged to take
part continuously in contests and competitions, but I don’t think they are
very happy doing it.
Q: You were the pupil of pianist Tatiana Nikolaeva, to whom you have always
professed a great respect. Can you tell us what about her influenced you most ?
NL: She didn’t teach me anything concerning piano techniques, but she
taught me all about the nature of music, how to feel it, the sort of equilibrium
I had to find on each piece. She didn’t teach me how to play, how to move the
hands, and that sort of thing she did in a suave and wonderful way. How she made
those movements is still a mystery to me.
Q: Some critics say you have an unlimited talent. What does that mean to you ?
NL: That’s more a wish than a reality. Only Rachmaninov or Paganini had unlimited talent - not me. On the other hand, I think they are referring to the technique, but I can’t see any difference. I don’t understand the difference between musicality and technique. These are two aspects that cannot be separated. When I want to make a determinate sound, I put all my will on getting it, until I get as near as possible to it...but there is always a little difference between what I want and what I get.
Q: So must a student be trained in acquiring a technique from the beginning ?
NL: There´s a significant difference between musicians educated in
Russia, like me, and the musicians of the West . I was trained since I was
five years old as if I were a professional pianist, in all aspects. If we
compare the average level of musical education of Russia and another
country, we find the Russian school gives you a much superior technique.
But then we would have the question of musicality, which is something inside
everyone. Radu Lupu or Michelangeli show you that inside each genius, each
maestro, there is a way of playing.
Q: Who do you admire as a pianist ?
NL: I adore Michelangeli because he´s the only pianist who really gets
what he wants, shows in music the idea he had previously in his mind. Most
of us can get near but never totally reach that.
Q: You´ve just recorded Chopin pieces, in which Maria Joao Pires seems to
have established the non plus ultra. What do you think of Pires´s
recordings of Chopin ? Have you compared them to yours?
NL: No, I´m sorry, I don’t know those recordings. I have some
recordings of hers, but not her Chopin.
Q: And how were you able to learn Rachmaninov´s Third Piano Concerto in only
three days?
NL: Well yes, I did that. I worked 8 and 9 hours a day for three days,
and I learned it. It was not exactly easy, but it is not as hard as one may
think. It was simply within my technical possibilities. That is why I could
do it.
Q: Glenn Gould complained of the inconvenience
of the tours, hotels, and pianos. How do you feel in these conditions ?
NL: I think Glenn Gould wasn’t able to find what he wanted: a sound, an
appropriate shade for a phrasing, so he made all kind of excuses; bad pianos,
bad acoustics of the concert halls, anything. I think we say those kind of
things when we don’t reach perfection, the perfection Michelangeli gets.
I like this feeling of traveling, hotels. It is like an adventure. You
don’t know how you will end up - happy or depressed because you didn’t
get what you wanted.
Q: Do you have any superstitions when you give concerts?
NL: No, no. I like everything to be normal, normal and natural, having a
nap at mid-day - even when I am not always able to do it any more. I don’t
like to change my habits, so I don’t get nervous.
Q: Perhaps that is your superstition: not changing habits. Everything
must be normal.
NL: (Laughs) maybe.
Q: Would you change to another keyboard instrument ?
NL: I prefer pianos. I think that with the possibilities it offers, the
piano is the instrument with which the most has been achieved in classical
music. You can play the music of 200 or 300 years ago, so it´s not
necessary to change instruments.
Q: Can we speak of star instrumentalists and
all the implications ?
NL: Indeed, some classical musicians really have a life of stardom, and
are even determined to have it, but I don’t like that at all because it means every move you make will be followed by a lot of
people, and that
sounds awful. I like to be with the audience in the concert halls to make
my music, nothing else. I have my private life.