Nikolai Tokarew, piano: "No.1" = CHOPIN: Piano Sonata No.2 in B Flat Minor, Op.35; BACH-SILOTI: Prelude for Piano in B Minor; SCHUBERT: Moments Musicaux D.780 Op.94; LISZT: “La Campanella”; ROSENBLATT: Variations on a theme by Paganini. BONUS CD = MUSSORGSKY-KHUDOLEY: A Night on the Bald Mountain; PROKOFIEV: Toccata in D Minor, Op.11 – Sony-BMG 88697341452, 62:00, 15:42 [Import] ****:
Winner of the 2006 Géza Anda Competition in Zurich and recipient of the “Audience Prize,” pianist Nikolai Tokarew regrettably remains much a foreign name to many who are residing in North America. This is especially true when news on the recent winners of the Van Cliburn Piano Competition are still buzzing top headlines in the music press. Nevertheless, Tokarew has caused a whirlwind in the cities he has so far performed. “He is more than just looks,” exclaimed a female audience in one of his recitals in the summer of 2007, “but Tokarew (24 year old at the time) clearly has a genuine musicianship.” No wonder the Japanese newspaper “Musica Nova” remarked “the power of the energy performance by Nikolai Tokarew promotes the depth and freedom of interpretation.” Similarly, Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung (South German Newspaper) described Tokarew as “a serious piano seducer, and one of the greatest piano talents.” To greater extent, the German press has recently proclaimed Tokarew to be a “miracle that has not appeared for a long time.”
As a gifted child nurtured in a Muscovite musical family, Tokarew studied in the renowned Gnessin School and subsequently the Moscow Conservatory. His early teachers included no less than Ada Traub and Vladimir Tropp. He subsequently studied with Professor Dina Parakhina in the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, Professor Barbara Szepanska at the Hochschule für Musik in Dusseldorf, and with celebrated pedagogue and performing artist Professor Rudolf Buchbinder in Zurich. Acclaimed as a child prodigy, Tokarew gave his début orchestral performance with Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s G Minor Piano Concerto in 1989. In 2000, Tokarew participated at “The 10th Eurovision Grand Prix of Young Musicians” and it was Esa-Pekka Salonen, who commented on the 17 year old pianist at the time: “It is very difficult among such a large number of gifted young performers to find only those three (winners) who in the following some years will have influence on progressing European art. He is definitely one of them.” As a fulfillment of Maestro Salonen’s revelation, Tokarew’s stardom is clearly on the rise.
For his Sony Classical début album appropriately entitled as "No. 1," Nikolai Tokarew has captured the prestigious 2008 ECHO-Klassik Best Young Artist Award. The album opens with Chopin’s Piano Sonata No.2, which is one of those pieces that could well fortify a pianist’s reputation as much as damaging it if poorly rendered, in part because it is so frequently performed and studied nowadays. Here, in the opening Grave and Scherzo movements, Tokarew applies shaping and subtle rubato to expose the phrases and rhythms, almost as if he is pealing off one layer after the next to discover what defines the beauty of this work. This gives listeners an afresh interpretation from the usual goal-oriented, build-up-to-a-frenzied climax approach that others may be accustom. In the Marche funèbre (3rd mvt), Tokarew imposes a solemnity (more like a meditation) that has an inner force equivalent to the eruption of nature, which sounds distinct from the famous readings of Rubinstein or Cortot, and weaves a more disturbing tread onto Chopin’s march. His clarity in detail is both rich and intimate within the Lento tempo, before roaring to the Finale Presto (4th mvt) that Tokarew delivers with zest and confidence. If there is one gift that is noticeable in this pianist, it is his skills in making notes transcend with elusion and mystery, and at the end, one finds themselves breathless with awe.
Tokarew then turns to shatteringly intense performances in the Bach-Siloti B Minor Prelude and a collection of late Schubert masterpieces known as the 6 Moments Musicaux Op. 94. Within this short miniature of the Bach-Siloti is a reflection of the whole world of humanly emotions, of colours and tonal definition that plunges straight into the listener’s heart. Listen to how Tokarew melts with his legato touch and ravishes with contoured inner voices. Then, in the Moments Musicaux, one hears a Schubertian of unusual temperament and depth. These transcendently beautiful piano gems were written in 1828, a year in which Schubert, knowing he was fatally ill, wrote with an almost unimaginable furiosity in an apparent race against time. Moments Musicaux shows Schubert’s mastery, and Tokarew galvanizes with split-second subtlety and brilliance. He plays with microscopic attention, particularly on how the composer unfolded drama as a man approaching his impeding death. How sadly beautiful! Tokarew brings in these Schubert six compelling and consecutive storylines, that at the end, rewards listeners into a vivid journey of emotional landscapes.
Both the Liszt and Rosenblatt on this album are clearly repertoires that demand the highest command in technical facility, but also a love on the art of improvisation. Liszt’s La Campanella is performed with outstanding execution in which Tokarew equips himself fully, with the self-confidence necessary to gain complete control of the piano without ruffling a hair. On the other, Tokarew’s choice on the Rosenblatt Variations on a Theme by Paganini has an interesting taste aside from mere technical showsmanship. It is perhaps associated with the pianist’s natural affinity with jazz. Aside from the main influences from themes by Paganini, one can readily hear the piano styles of George Gershwin, Scott Joplin, "Fats" Waller and Art Tatum. These are variations fiercely virtuosic that stand en par with those famously written by Brahms, Schumann and Lutoslawski, and with it, this piece found itself a worthy interpreter in Nikolai Tokarew as a top flight soloist.
Listeners would be pleased to find that Tokarew included a Bonus CD with the Igor Khudoley transcription of Mussorgsky’s Night on a Bald Mountain and Prokofiev’s Toccata in D Minor. Sony Masterworks surely hit the jackpot on this one – presenting a pianist with unequivocal technique and sincere musicianship. This is an album highly recommended if you are keen on discovering what potentials the younger generation of pianists has to offer.
— Patrick P.L. Lam
