Rachmaninoff International Orchestra, Mikhail Pletnev, Kent Nagano – Rachmaninoff Live – The Piano Concertos & The Paganini Rhapsody (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 02:43:05 minutes | 5,52 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © EuroArts Music International

Reaching the highest level of prominence as both pianist and conductor, Mikhail Pletnev is a major figure on the contemporary Russian musical scene. He is also a prolific composer and a competent amateur violinist.

Pletnev was born on April 14, 1957, in Archangelsk in the far north of what was then the Soviet Union. His family was musical; his father played and taught the bayan button accordion, and his mother was a pianist. When the family moved to Kazan in Russia’s Tatarstan region, Pletnev began piano studies with Julia Shaskin. He moved to Moscow at 13 to study at the Moscow Central Music School with Evgeny Timakin, and a Grand Prix at the Jeunesses Musicales International in 1945 proved to be the first in a long series of prizes for the young pianist. At 15, Pletnev moved to the Moscow Conservatory for studies with Yakov Flier, whose teaching propelled him to gold medals in two of the Soviet Union’s toughest events, the All-Union Competition in 1977 and the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1978. Pletnev launched a touring career that went fully international as restrictions on Soviet musicians loosened in the 1980s. His fluent, elegant style was sometimes likened to those of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and even Vladimir Horowitz. He made his recording debut in 1988 on the Virgin Classics label with Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 1, and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

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