Last night I went to a concert, which hasn’t really taken place yet. It’s on July the 1st. No magic was involved, but good fortune maybe.
We have the luck to be almost-neighbours to Russian concert pianist Irina Lankova and when I expressed my regret that we couldn’t come to her concert at Wigmore Hall in London on July 1st, she invited me to a private concert in her house.
And it really was very private: She played – and I listened. We were the only people there. It was all acted out as a real concert. Irina wore pretty clothes and played through the entire repertoire with only the natural pauses and only talk in the interval. I can’t even begin to describe what an extraordinary experience that was!
Her repertoire for the recital is quite masculine if you can put it that way, Rachmaninov, Scriabin and Chopin. On her website you can listen to some soundbites from her CDs. Try the Chopin CD, the last track, Presto, non tanto. Or on the Scriabin CD, the Fantasia, Opus 28, an absolutely amazing piece that I’d never even heard of before. Or my favourite of the evening: Rachmaninov: Prelude, Opus 23, No. 5.
If I should describe how her playing sounds to me, I’d say gentle yet authoritative. And quite without hesitation!
I’m deeply grateful to Irina for sharing this with me!
Top picture snatched from Irina’s website, bottom picture taken with my Iphone last night.
Sounds like one of those experiences which stay in your heart forever :-),
looking forward to seeing you all here in a few weeks time – have decided that we are going to have flæskesteg…. so Danish but we need to empty our freezer!! Let me know, if you don’t fancy it!
Henriette