Nikolai Roslavets - Piano Music (Marc-André Hamelin)

Information

Composer: Nikolai Roslavets

• (01-03) Three Compositions
• (04-06) Three Etudes
• (07) Piano Sonata No. 1
• (08) Prelude: Largo
• (09-10) Two Compositions
• (11) Piano Sonata No. 2
• (12-13) Two Poems
• (14-18) Five Preludes
• (19) Piano Sonata No. 5

Marc-André Hamelin, piano
Date: 1997
Label: Hyperion
https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA66926

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Review

Nikolay Roslavets was one of the most prominent casualties of the Soviet Union’s artistic policies in the late-1920s and early-1930s. Having carved himself a niche as an uncompromisingly modernist successor to Scriabin, genuinely believing that such a position could harmonize with Bolshevik ideals, he put up with years of critical and political abuse before going to cool his heels in Tashkent, re-emerging after a few years with a chastened ‘acceptable’ style.

Roslavets has a footnote in the history of music theory too. In his idealistic works of the 1910s and 1920s, of which the piano works are fully representative, he developed a system of ‘synthetic chords’, based on Scriabin’s late works but related to the 12-note experiments of Schoenberg and especially Josef Matthias Hauer. Into that melting pot he stirred something of the richness and agility of Ravel’s Gaspard and Miroirs, plus the intellectualism of Busoni. The resulting brew has an odour of over-ripeness and contrivance that not even Marc-Andre Hamelin’s mastery can dispel, but it is undeniably intriguing.

Some of the rhythmic interplay is so intricate as to defeat the typographers in the 1989 edition, and the hieroglyphic proliferation of accidentals includes a triple sharp at one point. But Hamelin finds his way through all this with amazing aplomb. Few are the pianists who would have the patience to decipher the Three Etudes, for instance, never mind to blend their sonorities so finely. The three sonatas on this disc may ultimately be little more than necrophiliac dalliances with Scriabin, but at least we can be confident that these performances do them full justice. In the Five Preludes Roslavets at last seems willing to purge his own luxuriances and cultivate clarity of line.

This finely recorded recital confirms Hamelin’s place as one of the most enterprising and virtuosic performers of our day. If the music hardly qualifies for ‘neglected genius’ status, it nevertheless exists in a powerful and fascinating world of its own.

-- Gramophone

More reviews:
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: ***** / SOUND: *****
http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/h/hyp66926a.php
https://www.amazon.com/Roslavets-Piano-Music-Marc-Andr%C3%A9-Hamelin/dp/B000002ZZ0

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Nikolai Roslavets (4 January 1881 [O.S. 23 December 1880] – 23 August 1944) was a significant Ukrainian Soviet modernist composer. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Jan Hřímalý, Sergei Vasilenko, Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov and Alexander Ilyinsky. Roslavets was a convinced modernist and cosmopolitan thinker. For this, his music was officially suppressed from 1930 onwards. His name was hardly mentioned in Soviet musical literature. Among Roslavets' works are five symphonic poems (three of them are lost), two violin concertos, five string quartets, two viola sonatas, two cello sonatas, six violin sonatas, and five piano trios.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Roslavets

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Marc-André Hamelin (born September 5, 1961 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian virtuoso pianist and composer. Hamelin is recognized worldwide for the originality and technical brilliance of his performances of the classic repertoire. He has made recordings of a wide variety of composers with the Hyperion label. He is well known for his attention to lesser-known composers especially of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and for performing works by pianist-composers. Hamelin has also composed several works, including a set of piano études in all of the minor keys.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc-Andr%C3%A9_Hamelin

http://www.marcandrehamelin.com/

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