Maybe I’m making too much of this. Still, the fact that the Russian pianist Nikolai Lugansky was born in Moscow to two research scientists reveals a great deal about his remarkable artistry.
In some ways, his virtuosic playing bears the hallmarks of the Russian Romantic heritage: rich singing tone, depth of sound, roomy expressive freedom. But as he showed Tuesday night in a program of Schubert and Tchaikovsky at the 92nd Street Y, Mr. Lugansky, 42, is a keenly intelligent pianist who values textural clarity. Almost like a scientist, he searches out inner details and strives to convey the structural underpinnings of a piece, even if this means adopting a measure of reserve.
This recital was his first appearance in New York since his New York Philharmonic debut in 2012. The two largest works were Schubert’s late Piano Sonata in C minor (D. 958), a recent addition to Mr. Lugansky’s repertory; and Tchaikovsky’s exuberant, if somewhat overwrought, Sonata in G major (Op. 37), a piece Mr. Lugansky has brought back this season for the first time since playing it triumphantly during the 1994 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, which he won.
He opened with a Schubert rarity: Two Scherzos (D. 593). The charming first one abounds in Italianate operatic lyricism; the second is full of rousing chordal fanfares. Mr. Lugansky played with crystalline clarity and lilt in beautifully understated performances that allowed wistful elements of the music to emerge.
In the Sonata in C minor, the somber, almost cool restraint he brought to the stormy, mercurial first movement revealed Beethovenian gravity in the music. He showed his tender side in a subtly lyrical account of the slow movement, then began the mysterious Menuetto and Trio as if sneaking upon the piece stealthily. He maintained an absolutely steady tempo in the darkly dancing tarantella finale, even as the music went through wild turns, an approach that conveyed its haunting relentlessness.
After intermission, he gave colorful, vibrant accounts of three selections from Tchaikovsky’s “The Seasons,” a suite of character pieces, one for each month of the year. Mr. Lugansky had Tchaikovsky sounding like a Russian Schumann.
Tchaikovsky’s 35-minute Sonata in G is seldom played, probably because technically it’s not just difficult but ungainly. This teeming music can seem excessive, like Tchaikovsky’s attempt to write an unabashedly symphonic piano sonata.
That Mr. Lugansky conquered the awkward elements of the music would have been reason enough to cheer his performance. He also made sense of it, especially where it mattered most: the impetuous, dizzying first movement. After his dazzling, coolly commanding account of the spiraling finale, Mr. Lugansky had enough energy for three encores, including a shimmering rendition of that showstopper étude “La Campanella,” Liszt’s take on a Paganini piece. I was just as impressed, though, by his lovely way with Grieg’s beguiling “Arietta” and Nikolai Medtner’s moody “Canzona Serenata.”
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