My experience is that Mykola Suk is an intensely self-effacing guy who seems genuinely surprised when the audience goes nuts, which it does.
He is a Ukrainian expat who teaches at several U.S. schools, and has a genuine gift for Liszt, not in terms of display, but in terms of finding music where others find only noise. I have never seen a virtuoso with so much command and so little exhibitionism.
There are barn-burning Liszt recordings; Gilels playing the "Figaro" fantasy, Arrau in the 2nd concerto, Levitzki or Barere in the 1st, Petri and Berman and Horowitz, and even a very young Brendel in uncharacteristically witty and incendiary Hungarian rhapsodies. But Suk plays Liszt as if it is music first and foremost, without any preening or stunting.
Unfortunately Mykola Suk appears to be one of God's innocents when it comes to promoting himself to Western audiences. I was at the concert that this highly compressed video clip is taken from, and the audience of mostly other pianists was utterly rapt.
But just try to track down his CDs.
http://ikif.org/StartPage.aspxSee you all next summer.
3rd&4thT
