modulation Archive

SCRIABIN: The Ten Piano Sonatas; Fantasy in b – Garrick Ohlsson, p. – Bridge (2-CDs)

by Audiophile Audition | Feb 11, 2017 | Classical CD Reviews

Garrick Ohlsson surveys the whole of the Scriabin sonata cycle. SCRIABIN: The Ten Piano Sonatas; Fantasy in b minor, Op. 28 – Garrick Ohlsson, p. – Bridge 9468A/B (2-CDs) (12/9/16) 76:23, 71:23 [Distr. by Albany] ****: Having met and interviewed pianist Garrick Ohlsson (b. 1948), I find him to be somewhat eccentric in his musical tastes, his having excoriated Schumann as a composer too self-involved and self-referencing, but turning to the even more solipsistic Alexander Scriabin as a source of musical enlightenment.  [But then they were all three a bit off mentally speaking, Scriabin included…Ed.] The Scriabin sonata-cycle (rec. 27-29 August 2014; 21-23 April 2015; and May 2015), embraces a musical progression between 1892-1913, tracing an arch Romantic’s response to Chopin and Liszt and evolving a personal sense of rapture that, like the paintings of J.W.N. Turner, become ever infused with light and a desire for a compressed moment of spiritual radiance. The First Sonata in F Minor, Op. 6 bears a stentorian, aggressive cast, especially as it rages against Scriabin’s own physical limits set by an accident to his right hand caused by excessive practice – curiously, a Schumann experience. Gloomy and reflexive, the general mood looks to the […]