Arkadij Volodos

Since his debut in New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1996 Arcadi Volodos has earned his status as one of the world’s most highly respected pianists. He has worked with some of the finest orchestras across the globe, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam and the New York Philharmonic, along with such major conducting names as Seiji Ozawa, Riccardo Chailly and Zubin Mehta. However, the focus of Volodos’s career lies in his solo recitals where, with his colourful touch and total immersion in major works by classics of the piano repertoire, he has fascinated his audiences in the world’s most prestigious venues. He returns to the Rudolf Firkušný Piano Festival after a four-year absence to present a programme featuring the rarely performed Davidsbündlertänze by Robert Schumann, his own, extremely virtuosic arrangement of Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 and the supreme Sonata in A major by Franz Schubert. When Volodos recorded this piece for Sony Classical, the British magazine Gramophone was in raptures: “Every phrase is so exquisitely turned, so perfectly graded in its nuances, so ideally blended – harmonically, melodically and in relation to what comes before and after – that it could be placed on exhibit for all to wonder at.”