Medtner Piano

The Medtner sonata is the principal work here. Of the three that he wrote the Third (Epica) is perhaps the most intricately worked and, at over 40 minutes, certainly the most substantial. At times it seems almost too long for its own good and for that reason it needs a very persuasive and masterly performance in order to project its strengths. Fortunately Vaditn Repin's and Boris Berezovsky's performance here is about as persuasive as you can get — Repin is lyrical and passionate and has plenty of fiery temperament for this music, and he is ideally complemented by Berezovsky's equally splendid playing. Much is made of the sonata's lyrical and melodic abundance (the Scherzo is delivered with great panache) and Repin's choice of tempo for all movements is expertly judged — compared to Alexander Shirinsky and Dmitri Galynin, Repin comes in faster in just about all movements; even so I still find the finale a little overworked and extended for the material.

SOMM Recordings announces Medtner in England, a revelatory new recording exploring the musical life of Nikolai Medtner, featuring violinist Natalia Lomeiko, pianist Alexander Karpeyev and baritone Theodore Platt.

This is a wondrous disc. Yevgeny Sudbin has not been alone in championing the piano music of Nikolay Medtner: in recent times Marc-André Hamelin, Steven Osborne and Hamish Milne have all brought their special insights into a composer who can perhaps on occasion seem problematic and somehow remote. Sudbin, however, seems to have an exceptional affinity with Medtner’s language. He brings both his heart and his head into play when performing these pieces. His head tackles and illuminates textures and harmonies that might seem opaque and knotty on a first study of the scores; his heart is then harnessed to convey the extraordinary sensibility, passion and thoroughly individual cast of melody that courses through the music. As usual with Sudbin’s series of BIS discs, he also writes his own booklet-notes in a lucid way that testifies both to his enthusiasm and to his understanding.

Like his friend and contemporary Rachmaninoff, Nikolai Medtner enjoyed a privileged and affluent upbringing, and was also exiled from Russia following the revolution in 1917. Unlike Rachmaninoff, Medtner could point to an ancestry that was part German, and his fathers passion for Germanic culture ensured that Goethe and Beethoven exerted as much influence on the young Medtner as Russian composers and writers, in particular Beethovens piano sonatas and string quartets. Medtner moved first to Germany, then France, before settling in London in 1935.