SCRIABIN • MUSSORGSKY The music on this album describes emotions in Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 3 is truly a strong colors, in a passionate and unabashedly masterwork: its structure is very classical, Alexander Scriabin Piano Sonata No. 3 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 23 Russian way. The centerpiece, Mussorgsky’s its rhythmical elements are almost obsessive, 1 I. Drammatico [6.34] 2 II. Allegretto [2.39] Pictures at an Exhibition, needs no introduction. and its themes are incredibly gorgeous. It was 3 III. Andante [4.09] Ravel made it famous with his incredible written quite early in Scriabin’s life, but we 4 IV. Presto con fuoco [5.09] orchestration, but I wanted to go back to can already notice his sound world being the original version, as if trying to clear my created in a unique and unmistakable way. It 5 Etude in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 2, No. 1 Alexander Scriabin [2.50] ears of the beautiful colors of the Ravel, and is a rollercoaster ride, emotionally, but it is 6 Prelude for left hand alone, Op. 9, No. 1 Alexander Scriabin [2.44] dig out the typically Russian colors that I think masterfully held together by common elements, Pictures at an Exhibition Modest Mussorgsky are embedded within the piano score. I was small and large, and by a great structure. 7 Promenade [1.22] fueled by years of studying Russian piano, 8 Gnomus (The Gnome) [2.51] orchestral and chamber music and by my As an encore, I have re-worked the Chernov 9 Promenade [0.45] extensive travels all across Russia. In the transcription of Mussorgsky’s Night on the 0 Il vecchio castello (The Old Castle) [4.04] process I found the original “Pictures” to be Bare Mountain. The work was written in the q Promenade [0.24] just as colorful as Ravel’s re-interpretation descriptive style of Pictures at an Exhibition w Tuileries (The Tuileres) [0.58] e Byd o (Oxcart) [3.12] and, at the same time, quite different. All of a although the scene described is quite unlike r Promenade [0.44] sudden the piece, which I had heard through any of the “Pictures”. Perhaps only ‘Baba Yaga’ t Ballet des pouissins dans leurs coques (Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks in their Shells) [1.07] all my years of studying piano played by gets somewhat close to it, but Night on the y Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle [2.13] countless pianists, and which always struck me as Bare Mountain really beats them all in terms u Promenade [1.14] very powerful but uneven, made perfect musical of wild and truly terrifying imagery. It was a i Limoges - Le marché (Limoges - The Market Place) [1.17] and pianistic sense to me. It struck me as joy to work on, and to try to unleash all the o Catacombae (The Catacombs) [1.45] incredibly descriptive, much more than the sonic potential of my beloved instrument! p Cum mortuis in lingua mortua (With the Dead in a Dead Language) [1.41] actual drawings and paintings that inspired it. a La cabane sur des pattes de poule, ‘Baba-Yaga’ (The Hut on Fowls Legs) [3.15] Alessio Bax s La grande porte de Kiev (The Great Gate of Kiev) [4.55] I toured with it for a while and decided to d Night on the Bare Mountain Mussorgsky/Chernov/Bax [10.21] record my own version. I have mostly stuck to Total timings: [66.16] the original writing, although I decided to thicken it up in a few places, to give it a ALESSIO BAX PIANO richer, wider and perhaps more dramatic palette. www.signumrecords.com - 3 - Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin But Scriabin’s eccentricities aside, his Scriabin’s self-importance translated into that marks Scriabin’s work even during this Born Moscow, 6 January 1872 extraordinary oeuvre of piano music has hyper-competitiveness. In 1891, while a student early period, the Third Sonata is unique among [O.S. 25 December 1871]; endured, and, no matter the listener’s taste at the Moscow Conservatory, Scriabin followed his piano works in following a conventional died Moscow, 27 April [O.S. 14 April] 1915 for the composer’s “doctrine,” these works this impulse to maniacal practice of Liszt’s four-movement structure). The opening warrant hearing on their own terms. “The Don Juan Fantasy; after straining his right movement, marked Drammatico, has, indeed, In every sense one of Western music history’s cycle of ten [piano] sonatas,” writes hand from excessive practice and receiving a compelling narrative quality. It betrays a singular figures, the Russian pianist and pianist Jonathan Powell, “is arguably of the doctor’s orders to rest, he continued practicing Romantic (one might say Chopinesque) concept composer Alexander Scriabin has been, in most consistent high quality since that of with just the left, developing a strong of beauty in its fluid lyricism and evocative equal measure, an object of cultish fascination Beethoven.” For Russia’s greatest pianists and sophisticated left-hand technique. Three harmonies. Scriabin’s liberal use of the and scorn. Both stem from his utterly unique throughout the twentieth century, Scriabin’s years later came the Prelude for left piano’s bass register imbues the music artistic identity: the ravishing music that piano music has been essential repertoire. hand alone, Op. 9, No. 1, one of several with a folkloric quality. manifests that identity has won fervent (Count Scriabin himself among these, who works demonstrating this proficiency. The admirers, just as the persona behind the lent his exceptional virtuosity exclusively unfamiliar listener, with eyes closed, might The Allegretto second movement seems a music has drawn contempt. The self-absorption to his own music in public performance.) never suspect the pianist is playing one-handed – logical extension of the first. The music passes and off-putting egocentricity that so fueled so luxuriant are the textures Scriabin creates. from F-Sharp Minor to the warmer key of Scriabin’s creativity – in a word, his messiah This recording brings together three important E-Flat Major, yet remains fraught, owing complex – make him an easy target for our early works from Scriabin’s sizable output of One of the signature works of Scriabin’s largely to its rhythmic and harmonic derision. In 1905, Scriabin unveiled his music for piano. The Etude in C-Sharp Minor, early years, and the masterpiece of his early restlessness – perhaps even more so than Third Symphony, not merely as his latest Op. 2, No. 1, composed in 1886 when Scriabin piano writing, is the Sonata No. 3 in F-Sharp the Drammatico, which remains consistently composition, but as “the first proclamation was fourteen years old, is his first significant Minor, Op. 23, composed in 1897. This is and assuredly in a Minor key. of my new doctrine”; from such grandiosity, composition in any genre. The Etude bears the the work that most clearly asserts Scriabin’s the arc is not so difficult to trace to hallmarks of late Romanticism – a rich harmonic artistic independence from the influence of The long-breathed melodies of the heartfelt his unrealized fantasy-masterpiece, the palette, an emotionally intense melodic sensibility Chopin and Liszt; it is also this rapturous Andante, in B Major, teasingly avoid the tonic. Mysterium: a week-long ritual for orchestra, – that characterize Scriabin’s music during Sonata that captivated one Tatyana de Schlözer The beguiling tranquility of this movement choir, dancers, and (naturally) piano soloist, this time. The influence of Chopin and Liszt upon her first hearing it in 1901, two years belies its finger-twisting passagework. The involving lights, scents, and such esoteric is audible here, which would combine with before she became Scriabin’s mistress. Sonata’s finale proceeds seamlessly from the elements as “bells suspended from the that of such Russian forebears (Balakirev, third movement, as the second follows from clouds,” to be performed on the Himalayas, Glazunov) to provide the foundation of Scriabin’s The Sonata is cast in four movements the first. This music is infused with a new and which would bring about the apocalypse. early compositional language. (interestingly, in light of the formal experimentation character and vitality, as if revealing a

- 4 - - 5 - complementary psychic state to the Andante – Rimsky-Korsokov, and Alexander Borodin, one “My dear généralissime, Hartmann is seething The first of Hartmann’s pictures encountered indeed, the third movement’s melody reappears of the five composers known collectively as as Boris [Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov] in Mussorgsky’s suite is “a sketch depicting a amidst the tumultuous Presto con fuoco – the Mighty Handful, a group that sought to seethed – sounds and ideas hang in the air, little gnome,” Stasov writes, “clumsily running or perhaps depicting the mercurial passage create a distinctly Russian musical aesthetic. I am gulping and overeating, and can barely with crooked legs.” The second Picture, “Il from one temperament to the next. An equivalent aspiration was held by the manage to scribble them on paper. I am Vecchio Castello,” presents another folk-like painter and architect Viktor Hartmann, writing the fourth number – the transitions melody – this one melancholy and understated ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– whom Mussorgsky met in 1870 through the are good (on the ‘promenade’). I want to whereas the suite’s initial theme was influential critic Vladimir Stasov, and forged a work more quickly and reliably. My physiognomy stately – representing a troubadour singing Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky bond between the two artists. can be seen in the interludes. So far I think in front of a medieval Italian castle. The Born Karevo, Pskov district, 21 March it’s well turned…” fleet third movement “Tuileries” (named for a [O.S. 9 March] 1839; Hartmann’s unexpected death in 1873 from Parisian garden), depicts, per the movement’s died St. Petersburg, 28 March an aneurysm deeply unsettled Mussorgsky. The suite comprises ten movements inspired subtitle, a “dispute between children at [O.S. 16 March] 1881 (Hartmann was only 39.) “What a terrible by Hartmann’s pictures, connected by a play” (“Dispute d’enfants après jeux”). The blow!” he wrote to Stasov. “Why should a series of “promenades.” The sonorous melodic plodding “Bydlo” (oxcart) follows. The “Ballet Predating the first of Scriabin’s ten piano dog, a horse, a rat, live on and creatures like figure that begins the work, and recurs in of the Unhatched Chicks in their Shells,” sonatas by nearly two decades, Modest Hartmann must die?” The following year, Stasov the transitional promenades, alternates based on Hartmann’s designs for the Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition organized a memorial exhibition of Hartmann’s between 5/4 and 6/4 time and resembles a choreographer Marius Petipa’s Trilby, is represents another pillar of the Russian solo drawings and watercolors. The exhibition Russian folk tune. delectably nimble. piano literature. While Mussorgsky scored his inspired Mussorgsky to create the present ten- greatest triumphs in the realms of song and movement piano suite, depicting the composer opera, he was a skilled pianist in addition to “roving through the exhibition, now leisurely, being, as scholar Robert Oldani has credited now briskly in order to come close to a b5 œ œ 6 œ œ him, “the most strikingly individual Russian picture that had attracted his attention, and &b 4 œ œ œ œ 4 œ œ œ œ œ composer of the later nineteenth century,” at times sadly, thinking of his departed friend.” œ œ œ œ nœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ and Pictures signals his penchant for Mussorgsky composed Pictures at an Exhibition œ the instrument. quickly, completing the score between 2 and {? b5 œ œ œ œ 6 œ œ œ b 4 œ œ 4 œ œ nœ 22 June 1874. While at work on the suite, œ œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ He was, with Mily Balakirev (with whom he under the working title Hartmann, Mussorgsky œ studied informally for a time), Cesar Cui, Nikolai wrote to Stasov:

- 6 - - 7 - The recitative-like sixth movement, “Samuel creative spirit of the dead Hartmann leads me As a postscript, this disc offers Konstantin Goldenberg und Schmuÿle,” is based on two towards the skulls, invokes them; the skulls Chernov’s piano transcription, further separate portraits by Hartmann – of “Two begin to glow softly from within.” Beneath adapted by Alessio Bax, of Night on the Bare Jews,” Stasov clarifies: “Rich and Poor.” quietly luminescent tremolando in the right Mountain, Mussorgsky’s earliest significant Mussorgsky adorns the movement’s central hand, the left invokes the “Promenade” orchestral work and his only instrumental melodic materials with augmented seconds, melody – inserting the viewer (Mussorgsky) work at the time that he composed Pictures suggesting Jewish folk music. into Hartmann’s scene, audibly haunted by at an Exhibition. Composed between 1866 his surroundings. and 1867, Bare Mountain marks the The garrulous seventh Picture is set in a beginning of Mussorgsky’s artistic maturity. marketplace in the French town of Limoges. Stasov writes of the ninth movement, “The Upon its completion, the composer boasted Mussorgsky originally provided the following Hut on Fowls’ Legs”: “Hartmann’s drawing of his newest creation that it was “Russian program for the suite’s seventh movement, depicted a clock in the form of Baba-Yaga’s and original, … hot and chaotic.” withdrawn before publication: “The big news: hut on hen’s legs, to which Mussorgsky Monsieur de Puissangeout has just recovered added the ride of the witch in her mortar.” © 2015 Patrick Castillo his cow Fugitive. But the good ladies of Mussorgsky’s turbulent music, marked Allegro Limoges don’t care, because Madame de con brio, feroce, conjures a wild ride indeed. Remboursac has acquired handsome new The suite concludes in majestic fashion porcelain dentures, while Monseiur de Panta- with “The Great Gate of Kiev.” Pantaléon is still troubled by his big red nose.” Mussorgsky’s enchantingly vivid music has The eighth movement comprises two distinct inspired at least a dozen orchestrations, parts: “Catacombae,” a stoic progression of most famously by Maurice Ravel in 1922. darkly voiced chords (Stasov records that Thanks in large part to these, while Pictures “Hartmann represented himself examining the at an Exhibition was never performed in Paris catacombs by the light of a lantern”); public during its creator’s lifetime, it has and “Cum mortuis in lingua mortua” – since endured as one of his most cherished works. “NB. Latin text: With the dead in a dead language,” Mussorgsky noted in the margin ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– of the manuscript. “Well may it be in Latin! The

- 8 - - 9 - ALESSIO BAX plays Mozart, comprising Piano Concertos K. 491 Andrew Litton, Jonathan Nott, Vasily Petrenko, he received the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music and K. 595 with London’s Southbank Sinfonia Sir Simon Rattle, Alexander Shelley, Yuri Award and Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Pianist Alessio Bax creates “a ravishing led by Simon Over; Alessio Bax plays Brahms Temirkanov, and Jaap van Zweden. Besides Award, which recognizes young artists of listening experience” with his lyrical playing, (Gramophone “Critic’s Choice” and Pianist giving concerts at London’s Wigmore Hall, L.A.’s exceptional accomplishment. insightful interpretations, and dazzling “Editor’s Choice”); Rachmaninov: Preludes Disney Hall, Washington’s Kennedy Center, and facility. “His playing quivers with an almost and Melodies (American Record Guide “Critics’ New York’s Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, Bax graduated with top honors at the record hypnotic intensity,” says Gramophone, leading Choice 2011”); and Bach Transcribed; and he has appeared at international festivals age of 14 from the conservatory of his to what Dallas Morning News calls “an out- for Warner Classics, Baroque Reflections including London’s International Piano Series; hometown in Bari, Italy, where his teacher was of-body experience.” First Prize-winner at (Gramophone “Editor’s Choice”). the Verbier Festival in Switzerland; the Risør Angela Montemurro. He studied in France with the Leeds and Hamamatsu international Festival in Norway; England’s Aldeburgh and François-Joël Thiollier and attended the piano competitions—and a 2009 Avery Fisher He performed Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Bath festivals; and the Ruhr Klavier-Festival Chigiana Academy in Siena under Joaquín Career Grant recipient—he has appeared Sonata for maestro Daniel Barenboim in the and Beethovenfest Bonn in Germany. He has Achúcarro. In 1994 he moved to Dallas to as soloist with over 100 orchestras, including PBS-TV documentary Barenboim on Beethoven: also appeared many times at such U.S. festivals continue his studies with Achúcarro at the London and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, Masterclass, available as a DVD box set on as Bravo! Vail, Bard Music Festival, Santa Fe SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts, where, the Dallas and Houston Symphonies, the the EMI label. His performances have been Chamber Music Festival, Great Lakes Festival, with Lucille Chung, he is now the NHK Symphony in Japan, the St. Petersburg broadcast live on the BBC (UK); CBC (Canada); and Music@Menlo, and has given recitals Johnson-Prothro Artist-in-Residence. He also Philharmonic with Yuri Temirkanov, and the City RAI (Italy); RTVE (Spain); NHK (Japan); WDR, in major music halls around the world, serves with Chung as co-artistic director of of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Sir NDR, and Bayerischer Rundfunk (Germany); including in Rome, Milan, Madrid, Mexico City, Dallas’s Joaquín Achúcarro Foundation, created Simon Rattle. American Public Media’s “Performance Paris, London, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong to cultivate the legacy of the Basque pianist Today”; WQXR (New York); WGBH (Boston); Kong, New York, and Washington, DC. and to support young pianists’ careers. Bax’s celebrated discography for Signum WETA (Washington, DC); and Sirius-XM satellite Classics includes Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” radio, among many others. An accomplished chamber musician, Bax has Alessio Bax’s antecedents are Dutch, German, and “Moonlight” Sonatas (a Gramophone collaborated with Emanuel Ax, Sol Gabetta, Belgian, and British, and include English “Editor’s Choice” and one of the magazine’s Hailed by International Piano as “a pianist of Steven Isserlis, Nicholas Phan, Paul Watkins, composer Sir Arnold Bax. A Steinway artist, “Top Ten recent Beethoven recordings”); Bax refreshing depth,” Bax’s extensive concerto and Jörg Widmann, among others, besides and an avid blogger (Have Piano, Will Travel), & Chung, a duo disc with Lucille Chung, repertoire has led to performances with touring with Joshua Bell in Europe, Asia, and tweeter (@alessiobaxpiano), and self-professed presenting Stravinsky’s original four-hand such esteemed conductors as Vladimir North and South America; Berlin Philharmonic food, photography and AAdvantage Miles version of the ballet Pétrouchka as well as Ashkenazy, Marin Alsop, Sergiu Commisiona, Concertmaster Daishin Kashimoto in Asia; addict, he lives in New York City with his wife, music by Brahms and Piazzolla; Alessio Bax Vernon Handley, Pietari Inkinen, Hannu Lintu, and regularly with Lucille Chung. In 2013, pianist Lucille Chung, and their young daughter.

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ALSOALSO AVAILABLE AVAILABLE onon signum signumclassicsclassics

Recorded in the Britten Studio, Snape Maltings, Saxmundham, UK from 23rd to 27th January 2015 Recorded in the Britten Studio, Snape Maltings,Producer Saxmundham, – Anna Barry UK from 23rd to 27th January 2015 ProducerRecording – Anna Engineer Barry – Mike Hatch RecordingRecording Engineer Assistant – Mike –Hatch Chris Kalcov Recording AssistantEditor –– CraigChris JenkinsKalcov Editor – Craig Jenkins Cover Image & Photography – © Lisa-Marie Mazzucco CoverDesign Image and & PhotographyArtwork - Woven – © Design Lisa-Marie www.wovendesign.co.uk Mazzucco Design and Artwork - Woven Design www.wovendesign.co.uk P 2015 The copyright in this CD booklet, notes and design is owned by Signum Records Ltd P 2015 The© 2015 copyright The copyright in this CD in booklet, this CD notes booklet, and notes design and is designowned isby owned Signum by Records Signum LtdRecords Ltd © 2015 The copyright in this CD booklet, notes and design is owned by Signum Records Ltd Any unauthorised broadcasting, public performance, copying or re-recording of Signum Compact Discs constitutes an infringement of copyright and will render the Any unauthorisedinfringer liable broadcasting, to an action public by law. performance, Licences for copying public or performances re-recording orof broadcastingSignum Compact may Discsbe obtained constitutes from anPhonographic infringement Perfo of copyrightrmance Ltd. and All will rights render reserved. the No part infringerof liable this bookletto an action may beby reproduced,law. Licences stored for public in a retrieval performances system, or orbroadcasting transmitted may in any be formobtained or by from any means,Phonographic electronic, Perfo mechanrmanceical, Ltd. photocopying,All rights reserved. recording No part or otherwise, of this booklet may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmittedwithout prior in anypermission form or byfrom any Signum means, Records electronic, Ltd. mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Signum Records Ltd. SignumClassics, Signum Records Ltd., Suite 14, 21 Wadsworth Road, Perivale, Middx UB6 7JD, UK. Alessio Bax plays Brahms Alessio Bax plays Beethoven SignumClassics,+44 Signum (0) 20 Records8997 4000 Ltd., E-mail: Suite 14,[email protected] 21 Wadsworth Road, Perivale, www.signumrecords.com Middx UB6 7JD, UK. AlessioSIGCD309 Bax plays Brahms AlessioSIGCD397 Bax plays Beethoven +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 E-mail: [email protected] www.signumrecords.com SIGCD309 SIGCD397 “a must-listen for any fan of late-Romantic piano music. This “Finely recorded, Alessio Bax is clearly among the most “a must-listenis one of forthe any great fan solo-piano of late-Romantic albums pianoof 2012. music. It’s Thisas simple “Finelyremarkable recorded, Alessioyoung Baxpianists is clearly now amongbefore thethe most public.” is oneas of that.”the great Musical solo-piano Toronto albums of 2012. It’s as simple remarkableGramophone, young Editor’spianists Choice now before the public.” as that.” Musical Toronto Gramophone, Editor’s Choice

Available through most record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 Available through most record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000

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