Denis Kozhukhin

Houston Symphony Orchestra / Jakub Hrůša / Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.2

“Kozhukhin is not only a genius musician, but also a brilliant performer. To watch him play is to be consumed by the music yourself in a totalizing wave. Shifts from ardent lines to chords ablaze with the disharmony that made this concerto so controversial at the beginning of the century were surprisingly fluid. Kozhukhin, rising from his bench to pull chords off the keyboard, shaking hair loose from a small pony tail, would, in an unbroken turn, become small against the piano, hunching his back as if in line with a poignant decrescendo.

In an act of magnanimity, Kozhukhin gave in to the audience’s standing ovation and calls for an encore. He chose an arrangement of Gluck’s “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” from the opera Orfeo ed Euridice. It should have been a stark change from the explosive concerto, but, profoundly, it felt like a demurely fitting resolution… To say it was breathtaking is an understatement.”
Bachtrack, October 2014