Ogdon: Scriabin – Piano Music (2CD, APE)

Performer: John Ogdon
Composer: Alexander Scriabin
Audio CD
SPARS Code: A-D
Number of Discs: 2
Format: APE (image+cue)
Label: EMI Classics
Size: 602 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes

Disc: 1
01. 1. Allegro con fuoco
02. 2. (Lento)
03. 3. Presto – 4. Fun?bre
04. 1. Andante
05. 2. Presto
06. 1. Dramatico
07. 2. Allegretto
08. 3. Andante –
09. 4. Presto con fuoco
10. 1. Andante
11. 2. Prestissimo volando
12. 1. Impetuoso
13. 2. Poetico con delizia
14. 3. Capricciosamente affanato
15. 4. Festivamente

Disc: 2
01. 1. Desir
02. 2. Caresse dans?e
03. 1. Masque
04. 2. ?tranget?
05. 1. Andante
06. 2. Presto
07. 1. Douloureux, d?chirant
08. 2. Tres lent, contemplatif
09. 3. Allegro drammatico
10. 4. Lent, vague, ind?cis
11. 5. Fier, belliqueux

Scriabin’ s art playing!

The skein of entwined myths around the personality of Scriabin make us to presume hewaqs not precisely an easy to follow composer and obviously tolisten him.

He was in fact, owner of a difficult and irascible character, his hate toward Beethoven’ s music joined with his eccentricities at the moment to compose are factors worthy to take into account at the moment to emit any previous pronouncement around his temperament.

That lack of center made of him a ceaseless investigator and true herald of new sounds. His music reveals a continuous state of tension and febrile anxiety, that permeate almost his entire work.

In this sense he personifies one of the main features of the contemporary man: that existential anguish and perpetual search of new horizons and moods, an absolute lack of pertinence respect to a fixed doctrine or movement.

The main characteristic of his music resides precisely in that visible ambiguity, loaded of romanticism made smithereens, in which you never realize the presence of an atom of religiosity, so common in the most Russian composers. That blend of mysticism, pantheism, nervous contemplation and sensuality is a common denominator when you analyze his complete works. So, at the moment you decide to listen this composer, you should gather all these factors due the fact you could obtain a deception, or disappointment.

Along the history, few pianists have been able capable to get into this kaleidoscopic universe, signed by a deep homesickness and enigmatic lyricism, enrooted till the core of his fertile and variegated imagination.

John Ogdon is precisely one of these notable pianists who understood and could express with distinguished refinement and sensual panache, the minimum facets of this composer.