Nikolai Lugansky has an impressive technique and is exceptionally precise, balanced and clear – but always remains modest and poetic. It seems as if his talent were an irresistible primal force that he has fully mastered. At the age of only five, he was already playing piano, and his intelligence, insight and formidable memory seem astonishing.

His love for Rachmaninov serves as the golden thread through his career. Perhaps he recognizes himself in the typical melancholy that is unique to the Russian temperament?