Dagblad van het Noorden – 11 February 2011
By Paul Herruer
NNO/Michel Tabachnik/Lucas Jussen – heared 10/2 De Lawei, Drachten
photo Marco Borggreve

*****

Today, there has grown some kind of atmosphere around the brothers Arthur and Lucas Jussen in which, apart from musicality, things like looks and age play a role, which hardly was the case with the first of the six performances Lucas Jussen – the oldest – gives of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto with the Noord Nederlands Orkest. Here and there a little more power of tone may have come from the piano, but that will come within a couple of years. Lucas Jussen played the piece virtually in the spirit of Rachmaninov himself: with a lot of clarity and refinement of timbres and articulations, a feeling for melodic lines, and a clear grip on form and tempo. Just an honest Rachmaninov in which lyric and fireworks both have their weight, and without any kind of vanity – reinforced by the excellent cooperation with the orchestra (…)