Recording of the Week, A piano double-bill from Leeds winners Alim Beisembayev and Eric Lu

A treat for piano fans this week, with a double-bill of rising pianist stars. The winners of 2018 and 2021’s Leeds International Piano Competitions both have new albums out, with Eric Lu turning to Schubert, and more recent champion 24-year old Kazakh Alim Beisembayev to Liszt, in a pair of albums that are as different in approach as they are alike in musical sensitivity.

Beisembayev is nothing if not ambitious – setting aside the medal-winner’s album that comes with winning the Leeds, this album is his “real” debut, and diving in at the deep end with Liszt’s Transcendental Études could easily give the impression of trying to run before one can walk. However, from the very first notes of the opening Prelude it’s clear that Beisembayev is utterly in control. Where many a pianist might use rubato as a tool to help negotiate some of the more daunting passages (and perhaps make them more graspable to the ear), there is a real sense that he and he alone is in the driving seat, deciding precisely when, where and how much to move the tempo around in pursuit of his musical vision. YouTube videos of performances of these Études sometimes show the performers sweating with effort (both physical and emotional); listening to these performances, I can’t imagine Beisembayev giving the visual impression of anything other than absolute cast-iron mastery.

That’s not to say – as my turns of phrase might imply – that he is somehow imposing himself on the music, putting it through its paces like a sports car just for the sake of showing off his technical chops. Nor is he a mere note-machine, deficient in musical feeling. The more relaxed moments – Paysage, No. 3, or Ricordanza, No. 9 – show a much more fluid side to his playing, achieving a pleasingly bright-toned form of cantabile. Moments that could be mawkishly sentimental – especially in Harmonies du soir, No. 11 – are refreshingly un-mannered, and even in the texturally busier Études the overarching phrasing and the shape of the music always come first, with the complex filigree correctly relegated to its supporting role rather than taking over. Listen in particular to the almost orchestral textures of Chasse-neige, No. 12 – with the tremolo accompaniment kept in the background like the shimmering of strings, so that the melodic lines can shine out over it.

Where Beisembayev is commanding and masterful, his predecessor Eric Lu is conspicuously reticent and delicate. His double-bill of Schubert sonatas seems barely to rise above mezzo-forte, even at moments of climax, and his tone in the more reflective moments is striking; it’s a pearly, bell-like sound that, despite the performance being on a modern grand piano, reminded several members of the Presto team of András Schiff’s wildly acclaimed performances on a unique fortepiano from a couple of years ago, which achieved similarly magical sonorities.

Lu comments in the sleeve notes on how moving he finds Schubert’s life-story – considering his later works a tragic self-expression as his mental health deteriorated. He mentions explosions of desperation, depression and darkness. I’ll be honest – I don’t think Lu “explodes” with the kind of violence that this commentary would have led me to expect. Even the sudden cascading scales in the slow movement of D959 don’t seem to convey any sense of shock. But I don’t think that’s a weakness of his performances at all; some of Schubert’s most haunting moments are when a kind of numb bleakness of the soul takes over (think of the end of Winterreise, which Lu also cites as influencing his approach). This can be every bit as powerful as hysterical outbursts of wild grief or rage.

At several points on the album, Lu really does seem to conjure up the more inward-looking soundworld of Lieder rather than of the soloistic piano sonata, and while he doesn’t come out and say so, I think this might be a deliberate choice. If so, it’s one that really works. The opening of the final movement of D959, in particular, has a sense of world-weary resignation about it that even Schiff doesn’t match; it feels like the valedictory conclusion of some song-cycle that has taken a protagonist from ecstatic love to mournful solitude.

If anyone still believed that pianists “these days” are somehow all too similar – too flashy, all technique and no soul – these two recent Leeds champions put that idea decisively to bed. The steely wizardry of Beisembayev doesn’t stop him from teasing out the sensitivity in Liszt’s music, nor does Lu’s light-touch approach to Schubert deprive his performances of emotional weight.