Imagine the keyboard player Metallica or Lordi goes on stage, approaches the piano, and Beethoven’s Appassionata begins to play. Thus, the brilliant pianist Alexei Sultanov and his “devilish” game looked in public.

He became famous after winning the Eighth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition on June 11, 1989, at the age of 19, the youngest contestant in that year’s competition. Listeners were awed by his virtuosic technique, musicality, and dynamic range.

A true genius, he experienced moments of unfading glory and tragic defeats, he knew how to overcome pain and amaze the audience, he knew his business to the smallest detail and had inexhaustible energy, which he generously shared from the stage. He left too soon, he died at the age of 35 in Fort Worth.