Why is Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) relatively famous while Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) is relatively unknown? Simple -- Scriabin wrote outrageously erotic music, died a horrible death and became an unlikely hero of the Soviet state while Szymanowski wrote elegantly erotic music, died a lingering death, and was a musical hero of the soon to be brutally extinguished Polish Republic. So while Scriabin's exuberantly excessive piano music is still regularly performed and recorded, Szymanowski's gracefully expressive piano ...
Read More
Why is Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) relatively famous while Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) is relatively unknown? Simple -- Scriabin wrote outrageously erotic music, died a horrible death and became an unlikely hero of the Soviet state while Szymanowski wrote elegantly erotic music, died a lingering death, and was a musical hero of the soon to be brutally extinguished Polish Republic. So while Scriabin's exuberantly excessive piano music is still regularly performed and recorded, Szymanowski's gracefully expressive piano music is still regularly ignored and neglected. If matters were otherwise, Martin Roscoe's superlative series of recordings of the piano works of Szymanowski would be greeted as an event of great artistic significance. After all, as this fourth volume convincingly demonstrates, it is in fact an event of great artistic significance. Roscoe is one of the great living English pianists whose virtuosity and dedication here is exemplary and wholly persuasive. From the evocative mystery of...
Read Less