Roslavets: Piano Works > Reviews > Revived music by post-Scriabin composer

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Not applicable
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Little known music played extremely well
Disadvantages:	Music has harsh dissonances and is not easy to understand

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

This is another outstanding performance by Marc-Andre Hamelin, once again championing the piano works of a little known composer. Hamelin plays with imagination and variety, bringing to life this very difficult to understand music.

The style of the music is post-Scriabin. Just as Scriabin took his starting point from Chopin, so Roslavets takes his starting point from late Scriabin, developing it in his own way.

For those not familiar with the music of Scriabin, he was a late nineteenth century, early twentieth century composer, mainly of piano music and orchestral music. Scriabin's early music is based on the music of Chopin, and similar to Rachmaninoff's. His later music is more mystical, associated with his mystical religious ideas. He is famous for his "Poem of Ecstasy", a work he wrote as he moved into his late period. Terms like "ecstatic", "wings of desire" and "voluptuous" are applied by the composer to his music as marks of expression. He is noted for his poems for piano, full of drama, pathos and passion.

In Roslavets we hear similar characteristics, and the first Three Compositions of Roslavets could almost be mistaken for late Scriabin.

The later music of Roslavets is more difficult to understand than that of Scriabin, but Hamelin makes it accessible. It is music which needs to be listened to several times to understand it, preferably, for those able to do so, following the printed music scores. Roslavets is more dissonant than late Scriabin, and has less singable melody than Scriabin.

The poems are reminiscent of Scriabin, but lack the immense sensitivity of Scriabin's. Of the Three Etudes, the first two are extremely difficult to play, but not very listenable, while the last, Burlando, is fun to listen to.

The sonatas have contrasting moods in sections, within a single movement. They contain some exciting rhythms which are reminscent of Scriabin.

There are some other preludes and short pieces, similar in style to the poems and sonatas, but with the material more condensed than in the sonatas.

Overall the music is a little more difficult to listen to than late Scriabin, and I would not have appreciated the music without listening to Scriabin first.

As far as I know, this is the only recording of piano music by Roslavets, and it contains all his works for solo piano. This recording is so good that it would be difficult for another pianist to produce another to compare with it.

This recording is highly recommended for anyone who wants to listen to the piano music of Roslavets, and explore a forgotten ground-breaking composer of the early twentieth century. However, for those with conservative tastes, who generally dislike twentieth century music, it would be unsuitable.

The CD is well worth buying for anyone who wishes to explore this unusual musical territory. It is probably the only recording available of this music at present, so if you want to listen to piano music of Roslavets, then this is the CD to buy.

For those interested in post-Scriabin music, then there are recordings of music by Frank Bridge, Alexandrov, Feinberg and Miaskowsky to explore. But none of them are as esoteric as Roslavets, and no one performs such music better than Marc-Andre Hamelin.