Arensky Piano Etude

Teacher of Rachmaninov and Scriabin, Anton Arensky (1861-1906) divided his life between metropolitan St Petersburg and provincial Moscow – during the second half of the 19th century, as Stephen Coombs points out in his excellent notes, ‘a city of sharp contrasts, fiercely religious, noisy and mournful… [of] sober days… followed by riotous nights’. A contemporary recalled him as ‘mobile, nervous, with a wry smile on his clever, half-Tartar face, always joking or snarling. All feared his laughter and adored his talent.’ Rosina Lhevinne remembered him being ‘shy and rather weak’. Tchaikovsky, like Prokofiev and Stravinsky, had time for his art, but Rimsky (whose pupil he’d been) thought he would be ‘soon forgotten’. Maybe Arensky, drunkard and gambler, was no genius, and he was demonstrably lost among the elevated peaks of Brahmsian sonata tradition. But that he could turn a perfumed miniature more lyrically beautiful than most, more occasionally profound too, is repeatedly borne out in the 27 vignettes of this delicate anthology (Opp. 25, 41, 43 and 53 in full and excerpts from Opp. 36 and 52 ).

This album of Arensky's shorter piano works was previously issued in 2001, on Olympia 692. It's varied in inspiration: The 12 Etudes of 1905 frequently pay tribute to France—No. 1 in C Major seems especially beholden to Fauré—yet No. 7 in E ? -Major displays the same interest in Wagner as the introduction to the slow movement from Arensky's Symphony No. 2. If the 12 Preludes, Trois Morceaux , and Arabesques owe a great deal to Chopin and Schumann, the six Essais sur des rythmes oubliés display the composer's fascination with metrical and rhythmic experiments…..

Barry Brenesal @ Fanfare

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Anton Arensky’s suite-like 6 Pieces reveal his wide-ranging appreciation of musical styles, while both sets of Etudes showcase his melodic gifts and inventiveness, sometimes echoing Chopin’s elevation of mere technical challenge with lyricism and daring harmonies. If the unquiet spirits of Liszt and Schumann can occasionally be heard in the 6 Exercises titled ‘By the Sea’, Arensky’s own musical personality is nonetheless pervasive. A pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov and teacher of Rachmaninov and Scriabin, Arensky’s star swiftly set following his early death only to rise again in recent times.

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