Scriabin: Poèmes, Op. 69 Nos. 1 & 2

“Brighton-born, Moscow-trained Yuri Paterson-Olenich shows real understanding of Scriabin's visionary music, including one of the weirdest sonatas, the Seventh. What he lacks in sheer volume he makes up for in poetic dreaminess, though textures are always clear.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2000

“Paterson-Olenich shows a deep understanding of this music.” Diapason

“Time and again he allows one to savour every aspect of Scriabin’s neurotic sensibility...playing with spaciousness and lucidity, never whirled into obscure agitation by the composer’s idiosyncratic directionsPaterson-Olenich has contributed his own lively and informed essay, and the recordings...are excellent. An exceptional, very personal issue.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2001

“The intensity with which Paterson-Olenich conveys Scriabin’s vision is, on several of the tracks, unrivalled in recent recordings. Several performances really stand out; I was impressed by the austerity and poise of the Prelude, op.67 No.1, the brilliance and range of colour employed in the Op.65 Studies and Vers la flamme, the dark intensity of the Ninth Sonata. This disc is a testament to Paterson-Olenich’s affinity with Scriabin’s late music.” International Piano, September/October 2001

“The first recording from this new label brings a powerfully expressive recital of Scriabin's most searching works, including the "White" and "Black" Masses, Piano Sonata No.10 and Vers la flamme. The young Brighton-born pianist tackles them all with astonishing assurance: a most auspicious début.” The Independent, 9th September 2000

“Paterson-Olenich, born in Brighton in 1974, is a Russian-trained pianist who makes light of Scriabin’s fiendishly difficult scores. He does not quite match those volcanic outbursts of the great Scriabin pianists, though he is superb in the delicate sonorities of the Poems.” Yorkshire Evening Post

“Amoyel's first-rate pianism puts clarity, proportion, and controlled freedom above all else and keeps the music's volatile undercurrents alive and active” Classics Today

“Pascal Amoyel admits he was driven close to neurosis when preparing his Scriabin recording and found it difficult to re-emerge into the world of other composers. Aphoristic or endlessly protracted, seemingly lost in a harmonic limbo or fiercely to the point, such music is indeed challenging to both listener and performer.
For Amoyel the tirelessly extended Poème-nocturne is 'phantasmagorical, ill-defined and confused' (terms he intends as the greatest compliment) and his playing on what he describes as a 'rather sombre-sounding Steinway' amply conveys his enthusiasm.
He is acutely sensitive to the dark mystery at the heart of the Op 41 Poème, its final section a decadent memory of Chopin's Op 10 No 6 Etude, and responds with refinement as well as energy to the Poème tragique with its demands of festivamente, fastoso, irato and fiero. In the Poème satanique (music indelibly associated with Sofronitsky) light is stalked by darkness in a menacing game of tag, while the enchanting Op 38 Valse is an all- Russian extension of the world of Liszt's Valsesoubliées. The Op 69 No 2 Poème is a notably grotesque danse macabre and in the final Vers laflamme Amoyel takes us on a mesmeric journey from threatening shadows to searing brilliance.
Yet even here he resists virtuoso temptations, making it odd that he should be described in France as one of Cziffra's 'spiritual heirs'. Confidentiality and insinuation are his hallmarks rather than wildness or flamboyance. Calliope's sound, like Amoyel's instrument, is subdued but it hardly detracts from an experience that is stifling or exhilarating, according to taste.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Amoyel makes the 3 minutes of this first Poème blissful to listen to - a sweet polyphony of floating lines, a pure rubato. In the title of Poème languide, the manner is explicit, but there are also heavily insistent, iteratively chordal items, such as Poème satanique. Vers la flamme memorably combines the approaches. Poème fantasque self-destructs in 29 seconds.” Sunday Times

“The performances of both the later works have a terrific febrile intensity that is true to the spirit, if not always to the letter, of Scriabin's music.” The Guardian, 15th September 2011 ***

“Sciabin's late piano pieces remain among the most revolutionary ever written for the instrument. These Morceaux, Poèmes, Danses and Préludes certainly call for a player of unusual insight… with the requisite technical command to give substance to the insubstantial. In all this Crossley succeeds admirably...” BBC Music Magazine, August 2008 *****

“Virtuoso ease and well modulated, evenly balanced sonorities have always marked Paul Crossley's way with repertoire that fuses thorny and sensual elements.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2008

“Andrei Korobeinikov's recital of music taken from the Scriabin's middle and late periods, alternating light and darkness, exultation and desolation, will surely become a compulsory addition to all lovers of his neurotic and compulsive genius.
At 22 this Russian pianist already ranks among his foremost interpreters. A graduate in law as well as music, won a glittering array of awards and is presently pursuing graduate studies at the Royal College of Music. Such largesse is reflected in playing of an unswerving musical honesty backed by a gargantuan technical command. His tempo for the Fourth Sonata's opening Andante may be exceptionally slow but it is sustained with rare poise and concentration; and if the following Prestissimovolando is less mercurial than from others it is once again totally convincing in its own ultra- Russian terms.
Korobeinikov goes through the second of the Deux poèmes, Op 32, and the Fifth Sonata's final outburst in a blaze of elemental thunder and lightning. And his authority is no less unarguable in the Eighth Sonata's extra-territorial wanderings and in Vers la flamme where Scriabin's obsessive patterning receives its ultimate nemesis. Such playing, finely recorded and presented, makes further recordings by this phenomenally gifted young pianist a necessity rather than a probability.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…playing of an unswerving musical honesty backed by a gargantuan technical command.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2008

“Korobeinikov unleashes the sonatas' pent-up fury with such wonderfully unbuttoned directness that it is hard to complain. There are no half measures in his playing, the technique is formidable; it is a genuinely thrilling disc.” The Guardian, 27th June 2008 ****

“Liquid tone and flexible frasing...acute sensitivity to Scriabin's often acrid harmonies and to the jumpy way his ideas develop...well equiped to convey both the faded regret of the earlier pieces and the hallucinatory suggestions of the elusive late works...this [Scriabin}recital is both seductive and convincing...well worth your attention” Fanfare