The Russian pianist Varvara Nepomnyaschaya – who uses only her first name as a stage name– was the revelation of the 2012 Concours Géza Anda piano competition in Zurich, where she won first place. There is little doubt that her first recital at the Théâtre de la Ville will cause a sensation, with her renditions of Beethoven’s astonishing Fantasia op. 77, in which impetuous and meditative motifs come in rapid succession, Schubert’s melancholy Sonata D 845, dedicated to Archduke Rudolf of Austria, and Prokofiev’s complex Sonata no. 8, the last piece of the seminal triptych of “war sonatas” premiered by Emil Guilels on December 30, 1944 at the Moscow Conservatory.