Shostakovich: 24 Preludes & Fugues

Melnikov unquestionably gives an impression of freshness and daring, as if he's discovering the music for the first time...Certainly one's bound to feel, listening to such superb playing, that... — BBC Music Magazine, June 2010, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 26th Aug 2022
Catalogue No: HMM93201920
Label: Harmonia Mundi

Record Review

December 2010

Critics' Disc of the Year
BBC Music Magazine Awards

2011

Instrumental Award Winner

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Shostakovich: Preludes & Fugues for piano (24), Op. 87

Alexander Melnikov (piano)

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These twenty-four preludes and fugues have become so closely associated with the personality and playing style of their ‘official interpreter’ (Tatiana Nikolaeva) that history has ended up deciding that “that’s the way to perform them” without looking any more deeply into the matter.

Yet this op.87 is brimming with fascinating answers for anyone who takes the trouble to ask the right questions; and it is not the least merit of Alexander Melnikov to have approached the work from first principles and come up with his own, eminently musical solutions.

Reissue from 2010.

Reviews

June 2010

Melnikov unquestionably gives an impression of freshness and daring, as if he's discovering the music for the first time...Certainly one's bound to feel, listening to such superb playing, that this is indeed one of the greatest contrapuntal cycles since Bach. Overall, then, a magnificent achievement.

August 2010

Few pianists have shown themselves to be so sensitive to music which is the response of a complex visionary to the corrosive banality of Soviet life at the time...[Melnikov] responds to all this with an impeccable all-Russian mastery and with a poetic commitment few could equal.

March/April 2011

A towering achievement.

October 2010

Melnikov is consistently alert to (and in control of) the music's dizzying variety of idioms and tones of voice...[He] conveys the scope of the collection as a totality with such consistent penetration and invention that this expertly engineered set can be enthusiastically endorsed for anyone seeking a complete recording.

20th June 2010

For all his brilliance in the extrovertly Bachian numbers, Melnikov, more than either Nikolayeva or Ashkenazy, is especially compelling in the internalised movements (the C minor and D minor preludes and fugues), baring the innermost thoughts of Shostakovich’s tormented soul. Simply unforgettable

25th April 2010

In this muscular, virile account, [Nikolayeva's] fellow Russian Alexander Melnikov makes you wonder why these works are considered monotonous or didactic. In his virtuosic hands, each one glints.

Shostakovich: 24 Preludes & Fugues

2 CDs

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