Sardinian pianist Andrea Vivanet is one of the most interesting musicians of our time. Far more than a fabulous virtuoso, Vivanet captivates with finely chiselled art of characterisation, organically coherent performance and utmost refinement of colourism in both large and smallest forms. His Szymanovsky album on the Naxos label was hailed by international critics, and this album is an unconventional panorama of Russian piano music from the traditional to the classical modernism of the 1930s.
Sergei Taneyev's only piano work Prelude and Fugue is not only a breathtaking contrapuntal masterpiece, it is also considered a pianistic acid test and is brilliantly performed here. Nikolai Tcherepnin, like Glazunov one of the great Rimsky-Korsakov pupils driven into emigration by the Russian Revolution, is still not completely rediscovered. Three of his miniature cycles are presented here in first recordings. The poetic lyricism of the turn-of-the-century music with its romantic, shimmering richness of colour contrasts with the subtle originality of the folk song arrangements Primitifs from 1926, in which the new era has its say.
This album closes with Shostakovich's overflowingly diverse miniature cycle of 24 Preludes, Op. 34 from 1933. Russian piano music has arrived in the modern age, but everywhere the tradition continues to shine through in a transformed manner. © Gramola Records