Zinaida Alekseevna Ignatieva (Ignatieva, Zinaida) |

Ignatieva, Zinaida

The creative image of the pianist was once outlined by her senior colleague Professor V. K. Merzhanov, a colleague not only in terms of “instrumental affiliation”. Ignatieva, like V. Merzhanov, only later, went through an excellent school in the class of S. E. Feinberg; after graduating from the Moscow Conservatory in 1962, she did postgraduate studies with Professor V. A. Natanson. So in many ways Ignatieff is a typical representative of the Feinberg school. “Her concert activity,” writes V. Merzhanov, “began in 1960 in Warsaw, where she won the title of laureate of the Chopin International Piano Competition. Polish newspapers wrote about her as an “excellent pianist”, noted the “huge success” enjoyed by her performances, “courage, freedom, subtle musicality and maturity” inherent in her playing … Ignatieva’s subsequent concerts in Moscow and Leningrad confirmed the pattern of her success at the competition, the right to perform on the big stage. In these concerts, even then, attention was drawn to the rare pianistic skill in six etudes by Paganini – Liszt, the completeness and nobility of the interpretation of Chopin’s works. I also recall the performance of Kabalevsky’s Third Sonata, marked by technical brilliance, sincerity and the charm of youth. During this period, one could, perhaps, reproach the pianist for a certain passion for details to the detriment of the whole. But her subsequent speeches testified to the gradual overcoming of this shortcoming. The pianist’s programs include works by Bach, Mozart, a series of Beethoven sonatas… The pianist’s repertoire is replenished with works by Glazunov, Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff.”

What can be added to these words? And in subsequent years, Ignatiev was distinguished by increased demands on herself, in-depth work on improving her pianistic abilities, repertoire inquisitiveness. As before, she often plays Chopin’s compositions, her Scriabin programs and interpretations of Bartok’s music are of considerable interest. Finally, Zinaida Ignatieva regularly refers to the work of Soviet composers. She performs plays by S. Feinberg, V. Gaigerova, N. Makarova, An. Alexandrova, A. Pirumova, Yu. Alexandrova.

Inatieva played with conductors B. Khaikin, N. Anosov, V. Dudarova, V. Rovitsky (Poland), G. Schwieger (USA) and others.

Currently, Ignatieva continues to give concerts both in Russia and abroad (Poland, Hungary, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and other countries).

The pianist’s repertoire includes all piano works by F. Chopin, as well as works by J. S. Bach, L. van Beethoven, F. Liszt, R. Schumann, F. Schubert, A. Scriabin, S. Rachmaninov, S. Prokofiev, P. Tchaikovsky and other composers.

Grigoriev L., Platek Ya., 1990