Nicholas Angelich, Piano – Tugan Sokheiv, Conductor – NHK Symphony – October 18, 2019 – NHK Radio – Tokyo –
A tribute of sorts this week. With the shocking news of the sudden death of pianist Nicholas Angelich, I found this recent concert (2019) featuring Angelich with the NHK Symphony conducted by Tugan Sokhiev in music of Balakirev, Rachmaninov, Chopin and Tchaikovsky and wanted to play this to remind those who are not familiar of who we lost in April.
Beginning the concert with Balakirev’s Oriental Fantasy, followed by Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Pagnini and the Chopin Mazurka Number 40 in F minor as an encore. The concert concludes with a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony Number 4 in F minor. It was broadcast live from NHK Hall on October 18, 2019.
Nicholas began studying piano with his mother at age 5 and made his debut at 7 performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 21. At 13, he and his mother moved to Paris so that he could study at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique, where he won multiple prizes for piano and chamber music. His teachers included Aldo Ciccolini, Yvonne Loriod and Michel Béroff.
In 1994, Mr. Angelich won the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition and made his New York recital debut in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center the following year. In 2003, Leon Fleischer, one of his mentors, gave him the Young Talent Award at the Ruhr International Piano Festival in Germany. Mr. Angelich made his debut with the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur at Lincoln Center in May 2003, performing Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto.
Mr. Angelich, a committed chamber musician, was a frequent guest at the Verbier and Lugano festivals in Switzerland. He frequently collaborated with the violinist Renaud Capuçon and the cellist Gautier Capuçon, with whom he recorded the Brahms piano trios, violin sonatas and piano quartets for the Virgin Classics label.
Reviewing the trio’s performance at the Wigmore Hall in London, Martin Kettle wrote in The Guardian: “Though the French brothers provide the celebrity element, it is Angelich’s piano which is the constant in these varied programs. Angelich is a master Brahmsian.”
Mr. Angelich made eight recordings for Warner Classics, including Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” a disc of Prokofiev, Brahms Piano Concertos with Paavo Jarvi and the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, and Beethoven’s fourth and fifth piano concertos on a historic Pleyel piano. His catalog also includes a recording of music by Baptiste Trotignon on the Naïve label.
In the 2018-19 season, Mr. Angelich began his first season as soloist-in-residence with the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montreal, working with the conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, a frequent collaborator who described him on Tuesday in the Montreal Gazette as “a generous soul and a pianist like no other.” Mr. Angelich was scheduled to close the orchestra’s 2021-22 season with two concerts in June.
Nicholas Angelich died on Monday April 18th in Paris, where he had lived since he was 13. He was 51.
The cause was degenerative lung failure, according to his manager, Stefana Atlas.
And now to the concert . . .
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