Bourgie Hall paid tribute this weekend to Sergei Rachmaninoff with three recitals. That of Saturday evening revealed a quite astonishing Russian pianist, almost unknown in the West, Alexander Kachpourine.
Placed more or less under the sponsorship of Louis Lortie, who played with both on Sunday afternoon, the Ukrainian Illia Ovcharenko, winner of the 2022 Honens Competition (this Canadian competition which was distinguished by its “clairvoyance » for having initially ejected the Russian candidates) and the Russian Alexander Kashpurin, which Frenchification leads us to spell “Kachpourine”, were the stars of the Rachmaninov weekend in the Bourgie room.
We chose to discover Kachpourin, whose biography does not allow us to place it very precisely at this moment. After a very traditional course in Saint Petersburg, he joined the Queen Elisabeth Chapel in Brussels in 2021-2022. He also studied artistic administration of symphonic and choral organizations. Is he currently from Brussels or stationed somewhere in Saint Petersburg?
In any case, his career as an international pianist has not yet been proven, and that is a great shame. Indeed, his recital brings us back to questions raised in an interview formerly with Sergeï Babayan who vegetated and ruminated in the shadows for years and years: what does it matter whether an artist breaks through or not?
Lineage and parentage
During all Studies-Tableaux op. 39, we only thought of one thing: all the dithyrambs read for two decades or more, all the nonsense and nonsense about one of the most sympathetic but ordinary pianists on our musical planet, Nikolaï Luganski. According to certain colleagues, particularly French, this Luganski would be “the” representative, above all, of the lineage of the great Russian tradition, mixing technique, intelligence, panache, flamboyance and so on. And now all these dithyrambs, pretensions, assertions that we had been reading about this pianist for twenty years without ever perceiving anything musically, we had it live in front of us, under the fingers of Alexander Kachpourin. The solid side, framed, as if cast in bronze, with infinite musical intelligence, a refined touch, shaded whenever necessary, daring flights, real panache, but without destruction of the keyboard (Matsuev style): Kachpourine has exactly all that .
The curiosity was too great: as soon as we returned home, we listened to this Opus 39 by Rachmaninov released on CD just a year ago by Luganski, a disc obviously multi-awarded. Lukewarm water like that can’t even be, compared to what the audience at the Bourgie Hall had been served live by Kachpourine three hours before! The question therefore arises: what makes a career? What makes an aura (apart from a few opinion leaders who shout loudly and “followers” who follow so as not to appear to miss the boat)? We can only wish Kachpourin the best for the future.
Same Rachmaninoff brilliance, same big leg and great Russian style in the 1D Sonata, whose meanderings Lukas Geniušas explored with even more subtlety during his concert at Ladies’ Morning in February 2023, a sonata included in his most recent disc, released by Alpha, which now serves as a reference, with the recording by Steven Osborne (Hyperion). In this true “Faust-Sonata”, just as Liszt wrote a Faust-SymphonyGeniušas (whose pianistic affiliation and aesthetics are much more mixed and complex) scrutinizes the text, while Kachpourine uses it to make the piano an instrument larger than life.
From the point of view of how to make the instrument sound and resonate, this concert was one of the most exhilarating of the season. And to those who have not yet experienced Bourgie’s new Steinway with a pianist of this caliber in a program of this type, we can only recommend that they do not delay too long.
As a reminder, to calm things down, Kachpourin played the Prelude op. 32 No. 5 by Rachmaninov, with a magic surpassing this time in subtlety Geniušas in its entirety. As for the other comparison – that with Richter’s designated successor, Ashkenazy and we don’t really know who else – you understood where it led as far as we are concerned.