Scriabin: Three Etudes Op. 65 (1911/1912)

“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

“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 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

“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, 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

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

“Although Scriabin's études do not fall into two neatly packaged sets in the same way as Chopin's celebrated contributions, nevertheless there's a strong feeling of continuity and development running throughout the 26 examples produced between the years 1887 and 1912. This is admirably demonstrated in this excellent issue from Hyperion, which, far from being an indigestible anthology proves to be an intriguing and pleasurable hour's worth of listening charting Scriabin's progression from late-romantic adolescence to harmonically advanced mystical poet. Indeed, although these studies can be counted as amongst the most digitally taxing and hazardous of their kind, Scriabin also saw them as important sketches and studies for his larger works, and as experiments in his gradually evolving harmonic language and mystical vision.
Piers Lane attains the perfect balance of virtuoso display and poetic interpretation. Expressive detail and subtle nuance are finely brought out, and he's more than receptive to Scriabin's sometimes highly idiosyncratic sound world; rarely, for instance, has the famous 'Mosquito' Etude (Op 42 No 3) been captured with such delicate fragility as here, and in No 1 of the three fiendishly difficult Etudes, Op 65 the tremulous, ghostly flutterings are tellingly delivered with a gossamer-light touch and a sense of eerie mystery.
The clear, spacious recording is exemplary.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…Ohlsson tantalisingly emphasises the music's compressive tendency, playing with an intimacy that recalls Scriabin's beloved exemplar, Chopin.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2009 ****

“Garrick Ohlsson's playing seems to gain in purpose and intensity as the sequence goes on and the musical language becomes ever more rare?ed and highly wrought. He catches perfectly the nervous energy of pieces such as Op 49 No 1 and Op 56 No 4 – both less than a minute long – as well as the scary obsessiveness of the Op 65 pieces, and manages it without making the music's extreme technical demands an end in themselves. He plays them all on an 1876 Steinway, too, adding edge and piquancy to the sound.” The Guardian, 27th March 2009