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This current recording follows on from the previous one by Mūza Rubackytė (Ligia, Lidi 0103351), dedicated to piano works by Godowsky (Sonata in E Minor) and Szymanowsky (9 Preludes Opus 1), which received unanimous critical acclaim.

Perhaps Szymanowski’s music is too cool and sophisticated ever to become popular. Even the third of his Op. 4 Studies, which Paderewski made famous, is less full-bodied than Scriabin’s early C sharp minor Étude, and while Scriabin believed in the madness of his later music, Szymanowski’s apparent abandon in his voluptuous period around the First World War is crafted with detachment. Dennis Lee clarifies the cascades of notes – or rather sonorities – in the two major sets, Métopes and Masques, so that these complex pieces are understood more easily than usual. The recorded sound is a bit thin and small, but clean.