Hyperion Records | Scriabin: The Complete Piano Sonatas

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CDA67131/2
2CDs

Recording details: June 1995
All Saints, Durham Road, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Andrew Keener
Engineered by Tony Faulkner
Release date: March 1996
Total duration: 146 minutes 45 seconds

PREIS DER DEUTSCHEN SCHALLPLATTENKRITIK
JUNO AWARD (CANADA)
CLASSIC CD DISC OF THE MONTH
CLASSIC CD 100 GREATEST DISCS OF THE DECADE
CLASSIC FM MAGAZINE RECORD OF THE MONTH

'Hamelin's playing has superb authority and presence, and when required the greatest delicacy too. His amazing technical skill is completely at the service of the music. This is a major release' (Classic CD)

'Hamelin's playing enthralls the ear with its rounded, never-ugly tone, flickering fingerwork, and thunderous power. A sensational issue in every sense' (Classic FM Magazine)

'Hamelin rises to the challenges of this music with complete mastery. But his is more than a purely technical triumph (though the effortless of his playing has to be heard to be believed)' (BBC Music Magazine)

'Il a les doigts et la sensibilité, la clairvoyance aussi, qui lui permettent de trouver un lyrisme généreux' (Le Monde de la Musique, France)

'He commands the four qualities that a Scriabin interpreter must have: a feverish intensity, a manic vision, a sovereign and fastidious command of the pedal, and a huge dynamic range' (Gramophone)

'This is one of the most significant Scriabin recordings of recent years, as well as another triumph for Hamelin, who reveals as much affinity for this Russian mystic as he has for Alkan, Godowsky, Ives, and Bolcom on earlier discs ... Two more favorable elements must be noted: Hyperion's spacious and vivid recorded sound, and a really superb set of booklet notes by Simon Nicholls' (American Record Guide)

'Hamelin's revelatory cycle of the Scriabin sonatas takes top honors rather easily ... a vein that's rarely been mined - and never with such virtuoso perfection. The more you think you know about these scores, the more striking you're liable to find this set' (Fanfare, USA)

'Marc-André Hamelin is the most important interpreter of Scriabin's music to have come along in decades' (Clavier, USA)

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)

The Complete Piano Sonatas

Marc-André Hamelin (piano)

LISTEN TO ALL EXTRACTS

		Piano Sonata No 1 in F minor, Op 6
CD1	1	Movement 1: Allegro con fuocoso [8'06]
	2	Movement 2: [crotchet = 40] [4'55]
	3	Movement 3: Presto [2'58]
	4	Movement 4: Funèbre [5'34]
		Piano Sonata No 2 'Sonata-Fantasy' in G sharp minor, Op 19
	5	Movement 1: Andante [8'41]
	6	Movement 2: Presto [3'38]
		Piano Sonata No 3 in F sharp minor, Op 23
	7	Movement 1: Drammatico [6'49]
	8	Movement 2: Allegretto [2'28]
	9	Movement 3: Andante [4'38]
	10	Movement 4: Presto con fuoco [5'36]
	11	Fantaisie, Op 28 [8'56]
		Piano Sonata No 4 in F sharp major, Op 30
	12	Movement 1: Andante [3'30]
	13	Movement 2: Prestissimo volando [4'28]
CD2	1	Piano Sonata No 5, Op 53 [12'46]
	2	Piano Sonata No 6, Op 62 [11'08]
	3	Piano Sonata No 7 'Messe blanche', Op 64 [11'24]
	4	Piano Sonata No 8, Op 66 [12'09]
	5	Piano Sonata No 9 'Messe noire', Op 68 [8'40]
	6	Piano Sonata No 10, Op 70 [12'56]
	7	Sonate-fantaisie in G sharp minor, Op posth [7'25]

Both as composer and virtuoso pianist, Scriabin was heir to the Classical and Romantic sonata tradition, but the transformation of this musical language in his own works was to be crucial for the survival of the sonata principle into the twentieth century. This set includes all ten of the 'mature' Sonatas, the Fantaisie, Op 28, and the youthful Sonate-fantaisie. This last, published only after the composer's death, shows an astonishingly sure hand developing in the fourteen-year-old.