For Alexander Toradze

Alexander Toradze, one of the most formidable and passionate exponents of the music of Sergei Prokofiev, died on May 11 at the age of sixty-nine. I knew Lexo from several interviews over the years, and was charmed, as so many others were, by his amiable, boisterous personality. I last saw him in 2014, when he played Prokofiev's Third Concerto at one of Iván Fischer's midnight concerts with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. His recording of the Prokofiev cycle, with Gergiev conducting, is the one to which I usually turn.