Master of Romantic tone. The New York Times wrote that the music world was taking notice of the “stunning virtuosity and prodigious technique” of Nikolay Khozyainov, and audiences agree: they have acclaimed his performances at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow.

He made his debut at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory at the age of seven and went on to study at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Khozyainov has won first prizes in numerous international competitions and was awarded Distinction in the 2010 Fryderyk Chopin Competition, where he was the youngest finalist.

His powers of expression as a great Romantic artist perhaps come in part from the way Khozyainov views music. As he told Russian Mind, “Whenever I play, I express what I am feeling and thinking about the music and give all of my heart to the audience. I aim to be myself and always try to be completely honest. Every composer speaks as if they were addressing their god and, when re-creating their works, we performers should seek to find that voice.”

IN-HOME SALON: NIKOLAY KHOZYAINOV has agreed to join us for an in-home salon Sunday, April 7 from 2-4 pm at a private home on Stanford Campus. If you would like more information on this fundraising event to support the mission of Steinway Society, call our Box Office at (408) 990-0872 or purchase your tickets here. 

1. Op. 27, No. 1 in C-sharp minor (Larghetto)
2. Op. 48, No. 1 in C minor (Lento)

1. Allegro assai
2. Andante con moto
3. Allegro ma non troppo–Presto

1. Allegro moderato
2. Lento
3. Allegro molto

Chopin’s four ballades represent, together with his two mature piano sonatas, the pinnacle of his musical creativity, combining the poetic romanticism of his smaller pieces with monumental drama. The Second Ballade, completed in 1839 at Mme. Sand’s country estate, Nohant, is the shortest and most unorthodox of the ballades. It alternates two wildly distinct musical ideas: a gently rocking F-major pastorale, and a virtuosic storm in A minor. The work develops in an increasingly dark and agitated direction before ending, after a terrifying coda, with a tragic A-minor recollection of the opening hymn, its original innocence a distant memory.

Chopin’s nocturnes inhabit a twilight realm of dreamlike fantasy. Supremely Romantic, they suited well the flickering candlelight and soft shadows of the salons of the 19th century. Credited to the Irish virtuoso John Field, who contributed some pleasant if unmemorable works to the genre, nocturnes were vocally inspired, owing much to the bel canto arias of Bellini. All have a ternary form (the contrasting B section usually in a related key), a slow tempo, a singing and rubato cantilena supported by a left hand that provides the rhythm and the changing harmonies, and an improvisatory character. Chopin’s nocturnes occupied the entirety of his creative life. A reflection of his genius is the unending variety that he brought to the simple form.

The C-sharp minor nocturne of 1836 and the C-minor nocturne of 1841 are among the composer’s most dramatic works. Departing from the serenity that characterizes Chopin’s other nocturnes, the two have, in their central sections, a restless storminess so profound that it threatens to burst the bounds of the genre. The C-sharp minor nocturne begins in deep melancholy over a broken chordal bass, moving in the central section to wildly distant keys with insistent triple-fortissimo chords; after a brief cadenza, the first section returns, ending quietly in the parallel major. The C-minor nocturne, an epic work, is the grandest of the genre. Its opening section has the character of a tragic aria; the middle section thunders in martial octaves before giving way to an agitated return of the opening melody in a passionate doppio movimento.

Dispirited in 1802 over his increasing deafness, Beethoven penned the “Heiligenstadt Testament,” a letter to his brothers in which he contemplated suicide but ultimately resolved to live for his art. (The letter was never delivered.) Upon his return to Vienna, Beethoven expressed dissatisfaction with his former manner of composition, and resolved instead to find a “new way,” marking the start of his so-called middle period. His music in the following years, during which he revolutionized the style he had inherited from his predecessors Mozart and Haydn, takes on a newfound grandeur and intensity of expression. One of the greatest works of 1804–5 is his Appassionata Sonata (a name assigned not by Beethoven, but by a publisher some decades later). Perhaps no work better demonstrates the emotional turmoil that characterizes the period.

The first movement is marked by startling motivic, dynamic, and harmonic contrasts; it alternates between sections of anxious foreboding and increasingly passionate, even explosive, outbursts. The opening statement, a misterioso elaboration of the F-minor triad, is repeated immediately in the flattened supertonic; this surprising rise of a half-step figures not only in the third movement also, but often appears elsewhere in Beethoven’s works. An extended coda of arpeggios spans the entire range of the instrument; the movement ends with a rumbling tremolo and a triad that features what was then the lowest note of the keyboard. The middle movement, an unruffled D-flat theme and variations in increasingly rapid notes, comes to an abrupt end with a fortissimo diminished seventh chord, leading directly to the third-movement storm. The second part of the movement is repeated, a departure from the form of the classical sonata. The tremendous energy built up in the previous two movements is released in an explosive coda.

In 1906, in search of a quiet place to work, Rachmaninoff moved to Dresden. There, inspired by Liszt’s Faust Symphony, he began work on a sprawling D-minor piano sonata whose movements, at least initially, evoked characters in Goethe’s famous play. Rachmaninoff completed the work, whose movements are structured like those of a classical sonata (fast–slow–fast), in 1908.

The first movement’s opening theme, a questioning rise and fall of a fifth punctuated by an emphatic authentic cadence, is said to represent Faust’s conflicted soul. In contrast, the simple sustained melody of the second theme evokes Russian Orthodox chant, which so frequently inspired Rachmaninoff. The second movement is a portrait of Gretchen: its radiant main theme is followed by a sublime soprano cantilena that arcs above a restless accompaniment. The raging final movement, with a thundering appearance of the medieval Dies Irae plainchant, depicts the demon Mephistopheles. As the tumultuous proceedings near their close, a triple-fortissimo rendition of the opening movement’s Orthodox chant rings out, with a terrifyingly effective harmonic change and a crash of a falling fifth.