Special offer. Franck: Preludes, Fugues & Chorals
Nikolai Lugansky (piano)
There is much fine piano playing here. Nikolai Lugansky not only storms Franck’s barns with authority and rich tone but in the quieter passages finds a tenderness for which the composer has...
Special offer. Franck: Preludes, Fugues & Chorals
Nikolai Lugansky (piano)
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There is much fine piano playing here. Nikolai Lugansky not only storms Franck’s barns with authority and rich tone but in the quieter passages finds a tenderness for which the composer has...
About
Given the paucity of César Franck's piano music on disc, Nikolai Lugansky's focus on this composer is to be commended. On his third release for harmonia mundi, the Russian pianist reveals an organ master strongly attached to the musical forms inherited from J.S. Bach: the prelude, the fugue, and the chorale. Translated to the piano keyboard, Franck's music, with its expansively conceived structures, requires a completely fresh approach that puts the greatest performers to the test: here, Lugansky took on an additional challenge by preparing his own transcription (a brilliant one, at that!) of Franck's celebrated Choral pour grand orgue No.2.
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
June 2020
There is much fine piano playing here. Nikolai Lugansky not only storms Franck’s barns with authority and rich tone but in the quieter passages finds a tenderness for which the composer has not always been given due credit.
May 2020
Throughout, Lugansky makes you more than aware of the constant battle between light and dark, the secular and the spiritual. His own transcription of the organ Chorale No 2 is a sombre and magisterial reworking of the original. While no one has ever equalled Cortot’s unique speaking and singing eloquence in the two masterpieces, Lugansky’s disc is surely among the finest modern alternatives.
