Russian & Soviet Piano with Nicholas Walker – upper intermediate – diploma+ – WAITING LIST
This exciting weekend course offers students the chance to explore the rich vein of music not only from Russia per se, but also from the countries that were once part of the Russian Empire or Soviet Union. Their many common features will be shared – in particular the influence of Chopin – but also many distinct and personal traits.
We’re delighted to be welcoming guest tutor Nicholas Walker to share his extensive knowledge on the Russian & Soviet Piano here at Finchcocks. Acclaimed as a “prodigy… of exceptional artistry” (Evening Standard), pianist Nicholas is renowned for his virtuosic flair and sensitive musicianship. A champion of Balakirev, his celebrated Naxos Grand Piano series includes world premiere recordings. He has performed globally, recorded widely, and appeared with major UK orchestras. His 2024 Wigmore Hall all-Balakirev concerts drew acclaim as “a master at work.”
The course is aimed at confident upper intermediates and advanced pianists.
Alongside the well-known Russian composers – Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Prokofiev, and others – there is a wealth of lesser-known figures who have written beautiful and significant works. These include familiar names like Balakirev, Glinka, Dubuque, Dargomyzhsky, Borodin, Mussorgsky, Arensky, Lyadov, and Gëdike, as well as important non-Russian Slavic composers such as Bortkiewicz, Glière, Lysenko, Szymanowski, and Silvestrov. One might also include composers born in the Russian Empire or Soviet Union, such as Čiurlionis, Karganov, Weinberg, and Khachaturian.
Composers of this tradition are often accused of never writing one note when twenty-five thousand will do! Yet there is a great deal of music that is far more accessible while remaining of the highest quality—for example, Lyadov’s Biryulki or Scriabin’s preludes.
The Russian & Soviet Piano weekend will follow our usual format, incorporating an interactive workshop on both Saturday and Sunday mornings and will include:
Workshop 1: Navigating your way through the thick forest of notes – how to make it all simpler.
When one opens a page of Russian, or indeed a great deal of other 19th/20th century music, one is often met with a very black, discouraging looking page. However what one is looking at is very often the chromatic ornamentation of simple tonal or modal chord progressions and melodies. This workshop will suggest ways in which you could explore this for yourself, and use the structure you find to enable you to play many notes with gesture, free of mental and physical stress.
Workshop 2: Recreating orchestral and other sonorities at the piano
The piano is capable of infinite suggestion, which is why so much piano music suggests other instruments, such as bells, the guitar, the harp, in fact the whole orchestra. This workshop will look at how becoming more aware of this stimulates one’s imagination so that one begins to make music from the beginning, rather than just struggling with the notes. Practice is a lot more absorbing this way.
After these, time will be spent in private practice, one-to-one tuition with Nicholas – or an open lesson performance class in our Steinway recital room. For inspiration on repertoire choice, the works of many Russian composers can be found on IMSLP – but not everything. https://notes.tarakanov.net/ is an excellent alternative resource. Although it is in Russian, there is a composer search available in English for which Nicholas has also created a handy help sheet on how to navigate. (Avaliable upon request.)
The highlight of a weekend course is often our Saturday evening tutor recital-talk. Nicholas will treat guests to a concert inspired by the music of Balakirev, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, interweaved with his knowledge of and great love for Russian and Soviet repertoire. We just can’t wait to experience it!
On this weekend course, guests will:
- Have the chance to play in and observe two performance masterclasses.
- Will receive a one-to-one lesson with Nicholas.
- Enjoy access to play on our 9 grand pianos anytime between 7am and 8pm. (There are enough pianos to go round that everyone can play a piano at any given time.)
- Experience a private salon concert of music by Balakirev, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff in the main hall of the family home, performed by Nicholas.
- Join and socialise with a group 8 fellow piano enthusiasts during lunch and dinner.
- Dine in style with lunches and three course dinners prepared by our fabulous chef.
- Experience the Finchcocks bubble, hailed as a “paradise for pianists” by BBC Music Magazine and stay in a grade 1 listed country manor.
Nicholas Walker
Hailed by the London Evening Standard as a ‘prodigy, of awesome technical fluency backed by exceptional artistry’, Nicholas Walker possesses a rare combination of talents combining sensitivity with ‘the flair of a full scale virtuoso and a sparkling intelligence’ (BBC Music Magazine).
He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where he won all the major awards for both piano and composition, and subsequently at the Moscow Conservatoire.
While still a student in Moscow, he won the First Newport International Piano Competition and has since played with many British Orchestras, including the City of Birmingham and National Symphony Orchestras, the Royal Philharmonic, London Mozart Players, the London Festival and New Queen’s Hall Orchestras, the Philharmonia and the BBC National Symphony Orchestra of Wales. As well as performing in all the major London concert halls, he has played in North and South America, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Scandinavia, Australia and Russia. He has recorded for BBC Radio 3, Cirrus, ASV, BMG Arte Nova, Chandos, Toccata Classics and Naxos Grand Piano. Equally at home in chamber music, he is sought after as an imaginative and sensitive accompanist, and his CD with Lydia Mordkovitch of Russian violin music was Daily Telegraph CD of the week.
Although Walker’s performances of Beethoven have brought him special notice, and his performances of the lyrical and late romantic piano music have also been singled out for the highest praise, it is for his championing of the cause of the neglected leader of ‘The Mighty Handful’, Mili Alexei Balakirev, that he is best known. Described by the Financial Times as ‘the nearest thing to a natural Balakirev performer’, Walker’s two discs of Balakirev piano music for ASV (CD DCA 940 & 1048) received great critical acclaim, and he has also received high praise for his performances of other Russian composers, including his live recording of the Liapunov Sonata on Danacord (DACOCD 539), described by Jeremy Nicholas as ‘thrilling… a tour de force’
His now complete series for Naxos Grand Piano is however unique, in that it introduces music that has never before been performed or published, including a substantial sonata and works that Nicholas has finished off himself. All the CDs garnered enthusiastic reviews, and CD3 was CD of the week on Musiq3. James Harrington of the American Record Guide has called them the “reference set”; Damian Thompson, writing in the Spectator, said that the series “has to be heard to be believed”, while Jeremy Nicholas in the Gramophone described the playing as “bravura with integrity”.
His 2024 Wigmore Hall performances – two concerts with different all Balakirev programmes on the same day (surely a first!) – were greeted with acclaim by Barry Creasy – “A master at work”: https://www.musicomh.com/classical/reviews-classical/mily-balakirev-nicholas-walker-wigmore-hall
Nicholas’s next recording project is a double CD of all the Liszt etudes and the Sonata in B minor.
www.nicholaswalkerpiano.com
www.youtube.com/user/NicholasWalkerPiano
For booking enquiries, please contact fill in the form below.
