'The Poor Sad Angel', a reference to Chopin from George Sand, this collection brings together a nice bunched up load of Opus numbers [Op49-62 / 1841-1846], the later years where he was involved with George Sand, a lot of these compositions were composed at Sand's summer estate in Nohant, central France, and shows a nice snapshot of Chopin in his later years, plus this is a great little snapshot of Lugansky in his earlier years, from the Master to the Pupil.
Nikolai Lugansky is Russian, he is now 40, he made this recording in 1996 at the age of 24, in his earlier years on the Vanguard label, great things were expected of him, especially from his teacher Tatiana Nikolayeva, and maybe he's turned out to be very accomplished, but the 'New Messiah'?, the front cover photograph [by Piet Roorda] i like very much, a close up head and upper torso picture, top of the head purposely cut off, arms folded, nice expression, an accomplished portrait.
On this listen it was tracks 1-2, 5 & 7-10 that i enjoyed the most, and surprisingly there's one exception to the Op49-62 'bunch' of compositions, and that's the lone Nocturne Op27/2 [Nocturne 8], and it's this piece that i found most compelling, it's my favourite Nocturne of Chopin,
Here's Nikolai Lugansky playing Nocturne 8 live on YouTube, plus i must post a performance by a young Asian girl called Rachel, she's so superb in her interpretation on YouTube.
Nikolai Lugansky is Russian, he is now 40, he made this recording in 1996 at the age of 24, in his earlier years on the Vanguard label, great things were expected of him, especially from his teacher Tatiana Nikolayeva, and maybe he's turned out to be very accomplished, but the 'New Messiah'?, the front cover photograph [by Piet Roorda] i like very much, a close up head and upper torso picture, top of the head purposely cut off, arms folded, nice expression, an accomplished portrait.
On this listen it was tracks 1-2, 5 & 7-10 that i enjoyed the most, and surprisingly there's one exception to the Op49-62 'bunch' of compositions, and that's the lone Nocturne Op27/2 [Nocturne 8], and it's this piece that i found most compelling, it's my favourite Nocturne of Chopin,
Here's Nikolai Lugansky playing Nocturne 8 live on YouTube, plus i must post a performance by a young Asian girl called Rachel, she's so superb in her interpretation on YouTube.
