Denis Kožuchin: The Devilish and the Divine • Rudolf Firkušný Piano Festival

Few Russian cities have given the world as many great pianists as Nizhny Novgorod. In the hometown of pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, within five years of each other Denis Kozhukhin, Igor Levit and Daniil Trifonov were born. The eldest of them will visit Prague again with a dramaturgically refined recital composed of works by Franz Liszt and György Ligeti, which will explore the darkness of hell and the blue of heaven. The recital will open with La Lugubre Gondola, composed by Liszt during his visit to Richard Wagner in Venice in anticipation of the great composer´s death, which came two months later. Also in the titles of the subsequent pieces we then find words like tomb, ominous or disaster. The mood changes abruptly with Ligeti´s virtuoso etude, The Devil´s Staircase, to finally find redemption in Liszt´s masterpiece Sonata in B minor.

The Rudolf Firkušný Piano Festival is organized by Prague Spring Festival.