Yevgeny Sudbin plays Medtner & Rachmaninov

Information

Composer: Nikolai Medtner; Sergei Rachmaninov

1. Medtner - Prologue from Stimmungsbilder, Op. 1
2. Medtner - Fairy Tale, Op. 51 No. 3
3. Medtner - Sonata-Reminiscenza, , Op. 38 No. 1
4. Medtner - Fairy Tale, Op. 20 No. 1
5. Medtner - Fairy Tale, Op. 26 No. 1
6. Medtner - Canzona matinata, Op. 39 No. 4
7. Medtner - Sonata tragica, Op. 39 No. 5
8. Rachmaninov - Prelude in D major, Op. 23 No. 4
9. Rachmaninov - Prelude in G minor, Op. 23 No. 5
10. Rachmaninov - Prelude in G major, Op. 32 No. 5
11. Rachmaninov - Prelude in F minor, Op. 32 No. 6
12. Rachmaninov - Prelude in G sharp minor, Op. 32 No. 12
13. Rachmaninov - Prelude in D flat major, Op. 32 No. 13

Yevgeny Sudbin, piano
Date: 2015
Label: BIS
http://bis.se/label/bis/yevgeny-sudbin-plays-medtner-rachmaninov

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Review

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.

‘Once you have become mesmerised by the harmonies,’ he says, ‘time stands still and you are completely absorbed in the moment.’ Such is also the feeling that comes over the listener when hearing him play this selection of seven pieces, which – presumably purposely – illustrates the range of emotion that Medtner could distil into his music. There is, for example, the ostensible serenity of the miniature Fairy Tale, Op 26 No 1, but it is a serenity in which the smooth surface of the music is ruffled by animated motifs and coloured with strange harmonies and sonorities. As Sudbin says of another Fairy Tale, the Op 51 No 3, it becomes ‘progressively more interesting as more detail [emerges]. This is a particular trait of Medtner’s oeuvre: repeated listening enhances one’s appreciation of his music greatly.’ The same is true of the Fairy Tale, Op 26 No 1, and indeed could be said of all the pieces in Sudbin’s set. It is fascinating to follow Medtner’s line of thinking through the Sonata-Reminiscenza especially when its intriguing contrasts are elucidated with such coherence and spellbinding magic as they are here.

Medtner’s natural companion on this disc is his intimate friend, Rachmaninov, from whose Preludes Opp 23 and 32 Sudbin draws six pieces. Even the well-known G minor, Op 23 No 5, comes up with a new exhilaration in Sudbin’s hands; the F minor, Op 32 No 6, acquires a terrifying, angered intensity. But in all six of these preludes Sudbin deploys a luminous spectrum of timbre, a clear interpretative focus and a finely tuned imagination to encapsulate their very essence.

-- Geoffrey Norris, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.classical-music.com/review/yevgeny-sudbin-performs-solo-piano-works-medtner-and-rachmaninov
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2016/Aug/Medtner_Rachmaninov_BIS1848.htm
https://www.pianistmagazine.com/reviews/cds/yevgeny-sudbin-plays-rachmaninov-and-medtner
http://www.allmusic.com/album/yevgeny-sudbin-plays-medtner-rachmaninov-mw0002904670
https://www.amazon.com/Yevgeny-Sudbin-plays-Medtner-Rachmaninov/dp/B0172MIDLQ

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Nikolai Medtner (5 January 1880 [O.S. 24 December 1879] – 13 November 1951) was a Russian composer and pianist. A younger contemporary of Rachmaninoff and Scriabin, he wrote a substantial number of compositions, all of which include the piano. His works include fourteen piano sonatas, three violin sonatas, three piano concerti, a piano quintet, two works for two pianos, many shorter piano pieces, a few shorter works for violin and piano, and 108 songs including two substantial works for vocalise. Despite his conservative musical tastes, Medtner's compositions and his pianism were highly regarded by his contemporaries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Medtner

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Sergei Rachmaninov (1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1873 – 28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. He is widely considered as one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Some of his works are among the most popular in the romantic repertoire. His style is notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness and his use of rich orchestral colors. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output, and through his own skills as a performer he explored the expressive possibilities of the instrument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Rachmaninoff

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Yevgeny Sudbin (born 19 April 1980 in St. Petersburg) is a Russian pianist. He studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, the Purcell School and the Royal Academy of Music. Among his teachers are Christopher Elton, Murray Perahia, Leon Fleisher, Stephen Kovacevich, Dmitri Bashkirov, Fou Ts'ong and Stephen Hough. Sudbin's recordings of music by Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Medtner, Scarlatti and Scriabin for BIS have met with critical acclaim and are regularly featured as CD of the Month by BBC Music Magazine or Editor’s Choice by Gramophone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Sudbin
http://www.yevgenysudbin.com/

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