Reminiscences de Don Juan Archive

Four Pianos/Four Pieces = SCHUBERT: Wanderer-Fantasie; CHOPIN: Etudes, Op. 10; LISZT: Réminiscences de Don Juan; STRAVINSKY: Petruchka – Alexander Melnikov, pianos – Harmonia mundi

by Audiophile Audition | Mar 13, 2018 | Classical CD Reviews

Four Pianos/Four Pieces = SCHUBERT: Wanderer-Fantasie in C Major, D. 760; CHOPIN: 12 Etudes, Op. 10; LISZT: Reminiscences de Don Juan, S. 418; STRAVINSKY: Trois Mouvements de Petruchka – Alexander Melnikov, pianos – Harmonia mundi HMM 902299, 79:34 (3/9/18) ****: Alexander Melnikov addresses four keyboard works in terms of their contemporary instruments, and the results often astound. Recorded October 2016-July 2017, these performances realize a project conceived by pianist Alexander Melnikov to select four significant keyboard works and to play them on instruments contextually relevant to the cultural milieu. The opening 1822 Wanderer Fantasy of Franz Schubert Melnikov realizes on an instrument by Alois Graf (c. 1828-1835), which permits Melnikov—even in spite of six and one half octave range—astonishing resonance and pungency, given the sheer technical virtuosity and sonority of acoustical motion the piece requires. The pounding opening bars pay homage to Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata, while the later melodic tissue derives from Schubert’s own song—so spiritually endemic of the Romantic Age—Der Wanderer. The single-movement structure, subdividing into four sections, becomes a Schubert trademark, eventually spawning likenesses in Liszt’s b minor Sonata and the string sextet Verklaerte Nacht of Schoenberg. The lyrical transitions into E Major and E-flat Major occur with […]