Rochdale Music Society concert: Luka Okros

Luka Okros

In the third of the 40th Anniversary Concert Series promoted by the Rochdale Music Society the young Georgian pianist, Luka Okros, brought his Eurasian take on the music of four European composers, to delight and bewitch the audience in Heywood Civic Centre.

A graduate of the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory and the Royal School of Church Music in London, he has already become an artist of international acclaim whose performances radiate warmth of personality as well as depth of musical understanding.

Luka chose to begin his concert with a short, but most attractive Sonata in E minor by the Austrian composer, Haydn, which he played with precision and poise. This was followed by a telling account of the Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor by the Polish composer, Chopin. For this work to have its maximum impact, the performer has to succeed in making the first two movements and the last movement build up to and follow on from the third movement, which is a lengthy and intense Funeral March.

The connections were made so effectively in this performance that, as the last movement's terrifying outburst of muffled fury in the face of death and the beckoning grave fell silent, the audience's loud and long applause was thoroughly justified.

The second half of the concert began with a complete performance of the Six Musical Moments by the Russian composer, Rachmaninov. This gave us an opportunity to experience their textural, melodic and harmonic riches in one sitting. From the largely subdued wandering up and down the keyboard of the melodic line in the first of these, to the paean of praise for the piano and its ability to produce sounds of noble exaltation with which the sixth one brings to their thunderous conclusion, Luka's presentation was as near perfect as you could expect.

He then ended the concert with a performance of the Austro-Hungarian Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 which was simply brilliant!

As an encore, Luka played his own composition: Intermezzo. Lovely!

Graham Marshall