Evgeni Koroliov

Pianist Evgeni Koroliov is known chiefly among connoisseurs and adepts. He studied in Moscow with the legendary Heinrich Neuhaus and Maria Yudina. For some time now he himself has been a famed piano teacher at the Hamburg Musikhochschule, where those attending his class included Anna Vinnitskaja. As a player, Koroliov has become especially associated with Bach. Of his recording of 'The Art of Fugue' Ligeti said, "If I could take just one record with me to a desert island, it would be Koroliov's Bach. There, in solitude, expiring from hunger and thirst, I would be able to listen to it over and over until my dying breath". In his Goldberg Variations, Bach explored the possibilities offered by the two-manual harpsichord. Left and right hand regularly cross each other or play in the same register. A performance on the piano - with its single keyboard - thus poses considerable technical problems, though no hint of this is found in Koroliov's playing. On the modern grand piano, he imbues Bach with simple naturalness, as if no other interpretation were possible. Koroliov's Bach - poetry and architecture in perfect equilibrium.