Scriabin: Étude Op. 2 No. 1 in C sharp minor - download (MP3 & FLAC)

“This 1980 Cheltenham recital (in fine BBC stereo sound) contains some passages f wonderful pianism. Was there another pianist so capable of nuances in Beethoven allegros without losing a leonine dynamism” Christopher Breunig, Hi-Fi News, May 2009 Album of the Month

“Gilels's clean articulation is a marvel in the rapid-fire Presto of Beethoven's Sonata...The 'Eroica' Variations comes wrapped in granite. Fingerwork here is stunning, and despite the hard-as-rock general demeanour, there are some moments of real fantasy. As the complexity of the Variations increases, so do Gilels's responses to the demands, resulting in some spectacular playing...he structure the Variations and Fugue brilliantly…” Colin Clarke, MusicWeb International

“This is music that demands pianism of superlative quality, and here Yevgeny Sudbin miraculously combines the volcanic intensity of Vladimir Horowitz with the cat-and-mouse tonal reflexes of Mikhail Pletnev.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2008 *****

“…no pianist of any generation has, in my experience, captured Scriabin's volatility so vividly as Sudbin. All these performances are flecked with personal touches and brilliances above and beyond even Scriabin's wildest demands. Finally, BIS captures Sudbin's astonishing range of colours and sonorities, ranging from the utmost delicacy to an enraged uproar, in crystalline demonstration sound. This, put suitably euphorically, is a disc in a million.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2007

“Writing in prose as delirious as his playing, Yevgeny Sudbin speaks in his accompanying nine-page essay of the incomprehension that greeted Scriabin's half-crazed genius in both Russia and the West. This is entirely apt and no pianist of any generation has surely captured Scriabin's volatility so vividly as Sudbin.
In his choice of sonatas (ranging through Scriabin's early, middle and late periods), his mix of drama and introspection are positively alchemic and entirely his own. It is as if the music's very nerve ends are exposed to view and rarely has a pianist been prepared to take such risks on record. He takes virtuosity to the very edge at the end of the Fifth Sonata and his daredevil aplomb is at its height in the Ninth, suitably named Black Mass Sonata.
How he varies the colour, light and shade in the early D sharp minor Etude so that its familiar heroic octaves sound newly minted and never merely frenetic! His selection of Mazurkas is given with a breathtaking subtlety, making you long to hear him in Chopin, while his response to Scriabin's command in the Fifth Sonata, presto tumultuoso esaltato, is like the vortex of a whirlwind. All these performances are flecked with personal touches and brilliances above and beyond even Scriabin's wildest demands.
Finally, BIS captures Sudbin's astonishing range of colours and sonorities, ranging from the utmost delicacy to an enraged uproar, in crystalline demonstration sound. This, put suitably euphorically, is a disc in a million.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…the playing is lively, full of character and colour, with an admirable range of touch… I find Arodaky often creates a greater sense of poetry in the individual numbers than Piers Lane in his set of the complete preludes for Hyperion. On the other hand, time and again one turns to Horowitz, whose 1956 recording of a generous selection of these pieces is available on RCA...” BBC Music Magazine, September 2004 ****