Scriabin

“Several years ago I presented a recording of all piano works with opus numbers by Alexander Scriabin. I rehearsed, played in concerts and then recorded eight CDs, 207 works, and eight hours of music”, notes pianist Maria Lettberg. “Scriabin’s music becomes accessible via a roundabout route but then it gets under your skin and intoxicates you like a drug, makes you euphoric, addicted and…happy.” With the present recording of the early works without opus numbers, she happily completes her mammoth survey of Scriabin.

Complete sets of the Scriabin sonatas are not as unusual as they once were (e.g., Ashkenazy, Laredo, Hamelin, Szidon, Taub, Kasman). Austbo makes his contribution as well. Those who like a more docile timid approach to the sonatas will like Austbo's versions. Even in the fortissimo parts Austbo, at times, seems to play "quietly"; he plays with little volume.

Chopin, Scriabin - Preludes - Igor Zhukov (1991)
EAC Rip | FLAC (img + cue), LOG | TT 65:27 | Covers (jpg 300 dpi) | RAR 203 MB (3% Recovery)
Melodiya | USSR | SUCD 10-00108 | 1991

Igor Zhukov graduated from the Moscow Conservatoire in 1960 (piano class of Professor H. Neuhaus). The pianist is a laureate of the International M. Long Competition in Paris (1957). He is widely known in the Soviet Union and abroad appearing with concerts as a soloist, in ensembles.

Alexander Scriabin, whose 150th anniversary we celebrated in 2022, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, one year his junior, were rivals at the Moscow Conservatory as students in both piano and composition. At the piano final exam in 1891, Rachmaninoff was awarded first prize and Scriabin second – it’s fascinating just to imagine what this rivalry between music history’s most famous classmates had been like. Subsequently, they went their separate ways; in particular, Scriabin became drawn to Nietzsche’s Übermensch theory and Blavatsky’s theosophy and his musical style changed drastically, leading to his so-called music of mysticism with the heavy use of progressive harmonies.

It may seem unlikely that Nikolai Roslavets would have consciously composed works in imitation of Alexander Scriabin, so that both composers would have pieces that could be matched up, title for title, as they are on this album by pianist Anya Alexeyev. But once one hears the music, the influence of Scriabin is obvious and omnipresent, so such a gesture on Roslavets' part as naming and numbering his pieces after Scriabin's doesn't seem farfetched. Roslavets' Two Poems, Five Preludes, and Three Etudes correspond to the identically named Scriabin works, which are paired here, and …….

Blair Sanderson @ Allmusic

Recorded during live concert performances, Lang Lang's second Telarc release justifies all the positive buzz surrounding this young pianist's rapidly ascending international career. He brings plenty of finger power and long-lined drama to Rachmaninov's ubiquitous Third Concerto, yet takes plenty of time to let the lyrical, soaring tunes spin without an inkling of self-indulgence. He admirably adjusts the piano part to accompany when he doesn't bear the melodic burden, and he gets more expressive mileage from transitions than many pianists do. For once, the thicker, more difficult first movement cadenza doesn't sound unwieldy and elephantine. The piano is a little too prominent in the mix next to Temirkanov's sensitively detailed, flowing orchestral support. While Lang Lang has not fully internalized the quivering underbelly of Scriabin's passionate keyboard writing, his poised and secure readings of 10 Etudes still boast plenty of dynamism, idiomatic nuance, and roaring, Horowitz-like octaves. Watch this pianist!