Pavel Kolesnikov BEETHOVEN

London-based Pavel Kolesnikov was born into a Siberian family of scientists and studied both the piano and violin for ten years, before concentrating solely on the piano. He went on to study at the Moscow State Conservatory with Sergey Dorensky, London’s Royal College of Music with Norma Fisher, and at Brussels’ Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel with Maria João Pires thanks to generous support from Mr Christopher D Budden, the RCM Scholarship Foundation and the Hattori Foundation. During his studies he was awarded the Milstein Medal and the RCM Benjamin Britten Piano Fellowship supported by the Philip Loubser Foundation.

Since becoming Prize Laureate of the Honens Prize for Piano in 2012, Pavel has performed extensively across the globe including at such venues as Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Melbourne Recital Centre, Saitama Theatre in Tokyo, and the Louvre Auditorium in Paris. Following his Wigmore Hall debut in January 2014, The Daily Telegraph gave his recital a rare five-star review declaring it ‘one of the most memorable of such occasions London has witnessed in a while’.

Pavel was a member of BBC Radio 3’s prestigious New Generation Artists scheme from 2014 to 2016. He made his BBC Proms debut in 2016 performing Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto No 2 conducted by Ilan Volkov, and was invited to return in 2017 to give an all-Chopin solo recital. He maintains a busy career as a recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic and Russian National orchestras, and the City of Birmingham, Toronto, BBC, Czech National and Flanders symphony orchestras.

His debut studio recording, of Tchaikovsky’s The seasons for Hyperion, was met with critical acclaim, and his second album, of Chopin Mazurkas, won a Diapason d’Or and a Gramophone Award nomination whilst earning Pavel a place in The Daily Telegraph’s ‘Cultural Best of 2016’.

Pavel believes that arts are best understood in their multitude rather then in separation and isolation. Painting and photography are areas of particular interest for him, as are fashion and perfumery. He is an avid collector of fine perfume and specimens in his collection date from the beginning of the twentieth century up to the present day.

Pavel Kolesnikov CHOPIN Mazurkas

Chopin is far and away the most popular among his coevals, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Liszt, and much of his music is within the grasp of amateur pianists. Responses to him are so deeply and inevitably personal that, in a way, the Mazurkas, Chopin’s preferred dance form, belong to everyone, whether they first experienced them listening to performances or recordings by Rubinstein or Pollini, watching choreography of Fokine or Robbins, or through their own hands. Personally speaking, I don’t recall not recognising at least a couple of mazurkas. All the more astonishing, then, to encounter in Pavel Kolesnikov’s new disc an ideal realisation of these exquisite dances, the likes of which I never dreamt of hearing.

Three sets (Opp 17, 24 and 50) are given complete. But Kolesnikov doesn’t present his thoughtful selection of 24 dances in tedious chronological order. As befits a dazzling bouquet, each blossom is given unique placement for maximum enjoyment of colour and fragrance.

It is Chopin’s dogged repetitions that can lead the mazurka’s most admiring votaries into desperate straits of rhythmic grotesquery. Kolesnikov takes these repetitions at face value, as integral to Chopin’s expressive intent. In his scrupulous observation of all repeats, he seems to revel in endlessly varying them without resort to distorting rubato. Not that Kolesnikov lacks pliancy. Liszt said it: ‘A wind plays in the leaves, life unfolds and develops beneath them, but the tree remains the same – that is the Chopin rubato.’ Kolesnikov does it.

Some of the larger set pieces, Op 59 No 3, Op 24 No 4 or Op 50 No 1, for instance, come to life almost cinematically. One easily imagines a large drawing room cleared of furniture and rugs, its floors swept clean and sprinkled in preparation for a dozen couples whose dancing skill is a joy to behold. The largest of these, Op 50 No 1, unfolds with great affective variety and richly varied sonorities, its tragic utterance chaste, courageous, the whole as tight as the snug fit of a master joiner.

Others speak with seductive charm. The poise of Op 17 No 2 is maintained without a trace of maudlin sentimentality. The rhythmic vitality of Op 33 No 1 keeps any suggestion of morose indulgence at bay. The strikingly different characters of Op 33 No 3, ingratiating, delicate, and the sensual melancholy of Op 68 No 2 share a sense of confiding intimacy. The stuttering rhetoric and gossamer fioritura of Op 17 No 4 are a nocturne in all but name.

The Warsaw Mazurkas are a world unto themselves. KK IIa/3, perhaps the earliest, is lithe and spry with the unselfconsciousness of youth. In the hushed sensuality of KK IIb/5, octaves in the middle contrasting section evoke silver bells, while the trills at the end grip the heart. KK IIb/4 in particular embodies Kolesnikov’s ability to choose the perfect sonorities that seem to instantly encapsulate the character of the music.

There are some mazurkas, such as Op 24 No 3, when an inexplicable kinesthetic magic takes over and the world’s rotation all but stops. Prone to lose its way in rhetorical excess, Op 30 No 2 here remains shapely, proportionate. In the familiar Op 6 No 1, the contrasting middle section borders on the terrifying. The implacable tragedy of Op 56 No 3 is so pervasive, you may find yourself, as I did, clinging to the contrasting middle section as though to a life raft.

I know of no other pianist who combines attention to the smallest detail with such nobility of phrase and cohesive sweep of the dance as a whole. The engineers have captured Kolesnikov’s sound – silvery, deeply resonant – perfectly. Listening to this recording over a period of weeks, Wagner’s description of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony as ‘the apotheosis of the dance’ kept running through my mind. Whether or not Kolesnikov’s new disc will suggest to everyone ‘the apotheosis of the mazurka’, for me these performances are the most beautiful and strikingly original I’ve heard. (Patrick Rucker / Gramophone)

Pavel Kolesnikov LOUIS COUPERIN

Long overshadowed by his famous nephew François, Louis Couperin’s reputation has increased tenfold over the past decade or so. More harpsichordists (at least on disc) are embracing this composer’s unfettered imagination and ability to generate extraordinary harmonic tension and release. So has one very special pianist, evidently.

Pavel Kolesnikov brings vitality, meaning, and stylish aplomb to this music by utilizing harpsichord-oriented technique like intricate overlapping finger legato, while at the same time making discreet use of the piano’s dynamic and tonal shadings. It helps that Kolesnikov’s Yamaha piano features two contrasting actions, one of which conveys the bristling yet muted immediacy of a harpsichord lute stop, notably at the outset of the two great G minor Passacaille and in the A major Gigue. In addition, Kolesnikov’s intelligent balancing of lines and specificity of arpeggiation gives a modern “spin” to Couperin’s gnawing dissonances and passing tones, such as in the D minor Chaconne.

A conversational outlook informs how the pianist articulates ornaments and flourishes in the various Allemandes, to the point where the basic dance rhythms are implied more than overtly stated. While nothing flashy characterizes the nearly eight-minute-long F-sharp minor Pavane, Kolesnikov creates an understated yet palpable dramatic atmosphere through his variegated touch and rhythmic fluidity.

Adrian Powney’s scholarly annotations never spill over into arcane obscurity, while Hyperion’s engineering holds a close-up yet full-bodied sonic mirror to the care and conciseness behind Kolesnikov’s conceptions. Not since Marcelle Meyer’s classic 1953 Rameau recordings have I heard French Baroque keyboard music befit the modern concert grand so naturally as on this remarkable release. (Classics Today)