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Standing ovation for Nikita Lukinov's night for Inverness Piano Recitals


By Contributor


Inverness Piano Recitals have once again brought to the Highland Capital another truly burgeoning talent from the world of classical piano.

Nikita Lukinov.
Nikita Lukinov.

Furthermore, Nikita Lukinov is presently resident in Scotland where he is taking his Master’s Degree from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

In recent years this young man has performed as a soloist in the UK, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, France, Poland, Croatia, Germany as well as in his homeland of Russia. He started learning the piano at the age of six and by 10 was playing with a full symphonic orchestra!

Nikita’s programme featured Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and in my opinion the most demanding of piano composers, Liszt.

The opening piece was the Beethoven Sonata No 3 opus 2 which was originally written in 1785 in recognition of Joseph Haydn. The four separate movements are all divine, but the opening movement is especially, played Allegro con brio, adding vigour to the overall Sonata. Having said that, I once owned an Allegro car and it was anything but lively.

We were then treated to a dash of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in the form of Meditation from his opus 72 No 5. Not what one normally associates with the symphonic maestro. He really wasn’t a pianist in the same category as Chopin and Liszt, but nonetheless this is a delightful piano piece which was played with sensitivity.

Nikita then turned his attention to another Russian composer in Prokofiev. Sergei Prokofiev’s output is truly substantial over his lifetime and this particular Amoroso is six short piano snippets from, of all things, Cinderella.

It’s only when you investigate Prokofiev’s output musically that you can begin to appreciate the range and diversity of his musical capabilities, and this puts him up amongst the crème of composers.

The intermission gave young Nikita a breathing space until he returned with, to my mind, the most difficult of piano-playing composers Franz Liszt.

Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B minor is a single movement piece which he dedicated to Robert Schumann. However, by this time in his life Liszt had effectively given up on the life of a virtuoso, bearing in mind that he’d been performing all over Europe to packed audiences with all the public adulation and attention of what in effect was a mid-19th century rock star. This sonata is recognised as the pinnacle of Liszt’s repertoire, and it is to Nikita’s credit that he performed it so well to the point of a standing ovation on completion. Tom Walker

The next event in Inverness Piano Recitals calendar is on January 30 2023 when the winner of the Casagrande Competition 2022, Yuanfan Yang, is the performer.


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