2025 04 11 Nikolai Lugansky in Beethoven’s 4th piano concerto

There are some works that went beyond simply expressing their era and actually changed the course of musical history; without them, music would not only be poorer, it would be different, too. Without a shadow of a doubt, both works on the programme tonight belong to this category. The Rite of Spring marked the (scandalous!) birth of modernism, while Beethoven created a model in his Fourth Piano Concerto that later Romantic composers would follow—almost without exception—in works on a similarly grandiose scale. Nikolai Lugansky returns to Athens after his recent triumphant appearance with the Athens State Orchestra, promising moments of magic of the sort Loukas Karytinos has been treating audience to for decades with his electrifying interpretations.