NIKOLAÏ LUGANSKY

Mendelssohn wrote his eight volumes of ‘Songs without Words’ between 1829 and 1845. So-called for their song-like quality, Mendelssohn himself wrote of them, ‘If you ask me what I had in mind…I would say: just the song as it is. And if I happen to have certain words in mind for one or another of these songs, I would never want to tell them to anyone, because the same words never mean the same things to others.’ Chopin’s D flat Nocturne of 1836 floats two exquisite, alternating song-like melodies over a broken chordal accompaniment. There’s a similar poetic lyricism to his melancholic Ballade No. 4 with its subtle harmonic complexities and wide emotional and architectural scope. Chopin-loving Liszt created piano transcriptions of Wagner’s operas to champion them to a wider public. His ‘Liebestod’ faithfully recreates the original’s shimmering orchestral textures below the soprano line. Lugansky’s Götterdämmerung arrangements are thus a natural addition to the repertoire.