Nikita Lukinov at St James’s Piccadilly
Invitation to Dance with the Prince of Pianists
And we could have danced all night judging from the enthusiastic audience and the friends that came back stage after a concert of such scintillating playing . Sumptuous sounds and a characterisation that he gave to each of these well known pieces. There was also a sense of occasion like entering a great opera house where the curtain would rise and magic would exude from the stage.
It was the same magic that this dashing young prince with a golden mane could extract from this great black beast seated in front of the altar in this most beautiful of London churches.
And it was fitting that it should be in front of the altar because the theatre is, too, a sacred place where dreams can become reality. An imposing beginning with the March from the ‘Nutcracker’ in Pletnev’s wonderful transcription for solo piano written by a great pianist who knows how to extract the secrets from the piano with breath-taking daring and heartrending beauty. Has the ‘Sugar Plum Fairy’ ever sounded so glowingly luminous just like a porcelain doll of perfect proportions! Nikita’s knowing chiselled playing of great delicacy was a wonder to behold. The ending of Tchaikowsky’s own ‘Sleeping Beauty’ was quite overwhelming for the sweep and sumptuous sounds that wafter around this very resonant edifice from fingers that flew up and down the keys with such aristocratic mastery.
