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Igor Zhukov

Igor Zhukov, who passed away with a discretion befitting a pianist (at least, as they are imagined in our climes), would sum himself up with the aphorism: "Among sound engineers, I am the best pianist; and amongst pianists I am the best sound engineer." Born in Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky) in 1936, as a child, he suffered under the ravages of history, kicked from one billet to another before returning to Moscow with his family, where he would learn piano with two masters who between them represented the very soul of Russian piano music: Heinrich Neuhaus and Emil Gilels. Greatly struck by the stature of his teachers, Igor Zhukov would say of Neuhaus that he had first seen the reflections, and then the rays, and then the light of the sun itself that shone around him.

Granted permission to leave the USSR, he would win second prize at the Long-Thibaud Competition in Paris in 1957. Zhukov played a lot in the Soviet Union, preferring a romantic repertoire that ran from Chopin to Scriabin; and he himself became a specialist in the latter composer, being the first pianist to record all his sonatas in the USSR, in 1972. The Russian pianist leaves behind around fifty recordings, almost all essential. Beyond Scriabin, he loved to discover neglected works, such as Tchaikovsky's Second and Third Concertos (he would record the First with Gennadi Rojdestvenski), or the works of Rimsky-Korsakov. He was also interested in the composers of his day, and performed Nikolai Miaskovski, Prokofiev, Poulenc and Barber. Igor Zhukov also had a particular interest in historical French music, Jean-François Dandrieu, André Cardinal Destouches and Louis-Claude Daquin, which he would play either as a solo pianist or in a trio.

Alongside his career as a pianist, Igor Zhukov also did a spot of moonlighting as an orchestral conductor, with the Ulyanovsk Chamber Orchestra from 1978. In 1983, he would found the New Moscow Chamber Orchestra, a name which became available after the old Moscow Chamber Orchestra founded by Rudolf Barchai was renamed the State Academic Chamber Orchestra. With his orchestra, Zhukov explored a repertoire running from Bach to Stravinsky. Turning down the option of a more prestigious career, he returned to the town of his birth as the conductor of the Nizhny Novgorod First Soloists' Orchestra from 2003 to 2008.

Zhukov's piano playing was often praised for its mix of power and lyricism, but also for its perfect balance of intellectualism and expressiveness. After a recital at London's Wigmore Hall in 1997, the critic Adrian Jack underlined the Russian pianist's penchant for "sounds floating in a mist of sound" and was particularly taken with Zhukov's vision of Scriabin's Third Sonata, for its luminous clarity and extraordinary inventiveness. Exceptionally cordial, Zhukov never permitted himself to become aloof from the musicians he worked with, to the point that he would insist on abolishing the titles of "first" and "second" violin, out of a concern for equality. He was likewise the sound engineer for the label MELODIYA, and Artist Emeritus of the Russian Federation.



© FH/QOBUZ - Janvier 2018
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Discography

11 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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