Petr Limonov (piano), Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, 29 October, 2023.

4****: William Ruff

Pianist Petr Limonov earned the admiration of his Sunday morning audience for both predictable and unpredictable reasons. First of all, his playing was very fine: intelligent, probing, stylish. Then there was the range of the music he performed: from Orlando Gibbons to Franz Liszt he covered 250 years in the history of keyboard music. And then there was his stamina: 70 minutes of playing with hardly a pause. He also knows how to make friends with the audience: his succinct introductions were illuminating and engaging.

But perhaps his biggest claim to the audience’s gratitude is that he managed to be in Nottingham at all. Andrei Korobeinikov, the scheduled performer, was stuck in Russia, unable to obtain a visa in these politically troubled times. However, it just so happened that Petr Limonov has been a close friend of this stranded musician since childhood, so Petr dropped everything and came to the rescue.

The first two pieces on his programme took him from Gibbons’ Lord Salisbury Pavan, a mournful, introverted, exquisite work from the early 17th century to another tenderly reflective work: Mozart’s A minor Rondo, K. 511, whose delicacy, transparency and intensity emerged as if new-minted.

Then came Schubert’s Sonata in A minor, written when the composer was a mere 18 years old. It starts off sounding almost like Beethoven – but the central slow movement couldn’t have been written by anyone other than Schubert. It’s a smiling, easy-going rondo with plenty of examples of musical sleight of hand including some ingenious key changes. Petr said that this Sonata has long been close to his heart – and it showed in his clearly affectionate performance.

Franz Liszt’s Nuages Gris (Grey Clouds) came next. If your idea of Liszt is the barnstorming virtuoso hurling fistfuls of notes at his doting public, then this piece might come as something of a shock. It sounds so modern, more like Debussy, in fact. It may have been gloomy, sparse, highly impressionistic, enigmatic but Petr Limonov seemed entirely at home in the strange world it conjures up.

To end came three Chopin pieces: the F minor Mazurka, the Ballade No 4 and the Scherzo No 2. Petr’s performances had all the poetry you could wish for, as well as impressive virtuosity and a vivid sense of drama. After such a programme an encore was inevitable: the calm of a Bach Prelude fitted the bill perfectly.

Petr Limonov, piano