![]() ![]() He displays no visible effort, an ease of imagination, harmony of proportions, perfect balance, impeccability and originality in tone. Each phrase seems to be crafted and considered, yet at the same time breathes with true vitality. They seem familiar (it is tempting to draw an analogy with Sofronitsky, the best performer of Scriabin, in my opinion) yet also surprising and unexpected, with unique tempi, pauses and contrasts of sonority. He possesses a sophisticated and rich palette of sound shades - what myriad colors in one pianissimo, sometimes brooding, sometimes windy, sometimes careless, sometimes wise - supplemented by an inquisitiveness and strength of mind, and this spirituality is transmitted to the audience. Nicolas Namoradze is not just a poet of the piano, he is its artist. ![]() “I discovered an amazing, unconventional personality - 27-year-old pianist and composer Nicolas Namoradze, who has something to say to the world… In Scriabin’s F Sharp Major Sonata, the pianist’s super-sensual musicality seemed to find its Grail… Namoradze feels everything in his own way, whether it’s desire, impulse, passion, intimacy - and with a sense of proportion in everything. Finally five Scriabin encores delivered with a seraphic smile: through a slightly-open door we could see him literally jumping up and down with excitement in the backstage moments between coming back on and astonishing us. And if the virtuosity was dazzling, Namoradze’s own studies, which seemed like a continuation of Bowen’s, were doubly so. In this player’s hands they were riveting, each one being brought out like rabbit from a conjuror’s hat and allowed to run (very fast) wherever it liked. Bowen is now all but forgotten, but his studies, written in 1919, are a fascinating blend of Romanticism and modernist experimentation. The programme for the second half didn’t sound auspicious: York Bowen’s Twelve Studies Opus 46, followed by six Etudes by a certain Mr Namoradze. Namoradze then segued into Bach, with the Ninth Sinfonia followed by the sixth Partita whose Toccata led majestically on to six lovingly-characterised movements the closing Gigue, which turns itself upside down and inside out, came with an exultant craziness which was never less than technically immaculate. I’ve never heard this puzzling work make such persuasive sense. ![]() Yet from the opening phrase of Scriabin’s ‘Black Mass’ sonata he had me hooked: those notes had honeyed grace, and the rest of the work unfolded in an opalescent glow, every bar being touched with beauty. I wasn’t expecting anything amazing: he’d won the Honens competition, and this gig was his reward, but winning a comp is no guarantee of greatness. I’m not often lost for words, but Nicolas Namoradze’s recital almost defeated me. ![]()
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