Ignas Maknickas returns to London after five years at the Royal Academy where his talent was allowed to grow and blossom . There is something very special about the Lithuanian school of playing with its great fluidity and natural beauty that was exemplified by Ignas today .
Playing of ravishing beauty on a wave of sounds that he produced with loving natural caressing movements as he relished the glistening beauty that he was producing .
Ignas is a poet of the piano and above all a dreamer. He is living his dream having returned to his homeland to set up home and start a life with his beautiful princess . No struggles with the difficulties of competing for a place in the piano world . The world he already holds in his hands with his love for his homeland but above all for music.
His charm and romantic good looks immediately revealed an innocent disarming simplicity as he presented the programme to the audience assembled by YCAT. It is a window to show off talented young musicians to an audience shopping for great talent to play in music clubs all over the UK .
I had heard Ignas at the Royal Academy some years ago in one of their first piano festivals organised by the indomitable Joanna McGregor. Ignas was paired with another fresher Alim Beisembayev in a performance of Mozart Double Concerto of youthful freshness and mastery . Both have proven their talent and have gone on to great things. Alim winner of the Leeds , establishing himself on the world stage and Ignas living his dream which will grow and enrich his life and others as his career advances.
The title of the programme today could well be called ‘Dreaming’ as it was a recital of whispered glowing beauty. Not high propulsion and strength but poetic beauty and radiance. I was with Jablonski yesterday and he was giving a masterclass where he half jokingly said that according to his Apple Watch one of the students had reach a decibel of 94 that Mr Apple advised that half an hour of that would damage your health ! https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2026/03/23/krzysztof-jablonski-at-the-chopin-society-uk-a-great-pianist-restores-chopins-lollipops-with-mastery-and-humility-jewels-in-the-crown-of-a-supreme-stylist/
There was no worry about that with Ignas today as he rarely played loudly because he drew us in to share his dream with us. Of course Ignas is a fine musician and with a kaleidoscopic palette of sounds, but it is the contrasts and sense of balance of the sounds not necessarily the volume that counts. There is the Matthay room at the Royal Academy and the busts of two of Uncle Tobbs most famous Dames en situ on the staircase . Myra and Moura must look on in dismay at some of the volume of sounds that escape from the practice rooms to the staircase . Matthay taught his students that in every key there is an infinite variety of sounds. The way of producing them got all mixed up in theory but the simple truth is that those that listen to themselves and search for the sounds will find a way to produce them. Look at Casals and Segovia on their instruments who both had to find a way of finding a way to drive in an alien landscape . Richter when he first was allowed to visit the west was more astonishing for his control of sound especially between piano and mezzo forte than his dynamic and even demonic temperament
Ignas showed us today that music can still be shared and an intimacy can be created that can unite an audience of strangers into a communion of sounds that unite rather than annihilate the listener !
Many of these works that he played today I have heard him play before but with playing of such poetic creativity each work is like hearing it for the first time. ‘Kindersenen’ was full of magic sounds from t’he people of foreign lands’ to the ‘pleading child ‘ of disarming simplicity. What ‘joie de vivre’ on the ‘Hobbyhorse’ that he played with a charm that warmed the heart as did the ravishing beauty of the ‘child falling asleep’. A ‘poet speaking’ with such serious eloquence but then on a cloud of pedalled sounds reappearing with a heartrending coda. Four Preludes by a fellow Lithuanian Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis ( oh for the Wangs or Wongs !) which was a mellifluous outpouring of simple folk melodies of popular appeal not deep and searching but beautiful dreams in a sound world that was very much that of Ignas. Even the works of Chopin he had excluded the showpiece of op 34 n.1 opting for the disarming beauty of n. 2 which he combined with Chopin’s Cat who today was obviously on some sort of high! The two Nocturnes op 27 are two of Chopin’s most radiant and beautiful. The first in C sharp minor is a miniature tone poem where clouds accumulate and a storm is brewing but like a ‘Ship on the ocean’ it is is short lived and the thankfulness for it being over was one of those moments of magic that Ignas played with knowing beauty. The whispered beauty of the D flat nocturne showed Ignas’s mastery of balance where the melody line was not played with chiselled beauty but was revealed with its soul in tact as the magical changing harmonies were like whispers following the melody in the dark.
Chopin’s Barcarolle I have not heard Ignas play before but it is Chopin’s greatest masterpiece written towards the end of a life that had never seen Venice but perhaps could envisage it with even more magic with his genial soul. It is one long song which of course Ignas chose to finish his dream otigramme with today. There was magic in the air and Ignas even risked a passionate involvement that he had saved for this very special performance when his youthful fire and passion were just waiting to be ignited.
One encore from an audience in a trance from such visions of beauty. I imagine it was another of those beautiful simple preludes by Joe Smith or such like!!!.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 