This CD's title, Messe Noire, and its dark cover art may mislead some into thinking this album is filled with evil, forbidden things; but the only selection that suggests the diabolical is Alexander Scriabin's macabre Sonata No. 9, "Black Mass," and it comes at the very end, after Igor Stravinsky's light, neo-Classical Serenade in A, Dmitry Shostakovich's sardonic Sonata No. 2, and Sergey Prokofiev's witty but brutal knuckle-buster, the Sonata No. 7, which all have their dark moments, certainly, but not the same sinister mood found in Scriabin. If pianist Aleksei Lubimov's aim in bringing these Russian masterworks together points to some other unifying idea – perhaps the significance of the piano in these composers' thinking – then some other title might have been more helpful. As it is, though, this album seems most unified in Lubimov's vigorous style of playing, brittle execution, and emphasis on the piano's percussive sonorities, evident in each performance. This spiky approach works best in Prokofiev's sonata, and fairly well in Shostakovich's and Stravinsky's pieces; but it seems too sterile in Scriabin's music, which needs more languor and sensuous writhing than clarity or crispness.

This album marks Peter Jablonskis debut for the Ondine label. Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) created an impressive catalogue of works for the piano and became one of the great innovators in 20th century music. In his early works, the listener can sense the composers great admiration for the art of Frédéric Chopin. This is especially manifested in the over 20 Mazurkas that Scriabin wrote for the solo piano, the very same form of music that Chopin followed throughout his active years as a composer. Jablonski's album includes all Scriabin's Mazurkas with an opus number as well as two early Mazurkas.

Paul Ji, winner of the Prodiges competition in 2019, is a 16-year old pianist, born in Chicago, USA to a Chinese family and raised in France since the age of five. This album, contains a selection of 16 romantic masterpieces for the piano.

Daniil Trifinov's, Silver Age, recorded w/ Valery Gergiev & the Mariinsky Orchestra, recalls a time when Russia's composers, poets, & artists were among the most original anywhere in the world. It illustrates the artistic audacity & brilliance of a turbulent era in the country's history w/ works by 3 of its most pioneering composers: Scriabin's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in F sharp minor Op.20, Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor Op.16, & Stravinsky's Three Movements from Petrushka.

“This is not at all what I wrote, but play it like this. Do play it this way!” exclaimed Dmitri Shostakovich after Yudina performed the freshly written 24 Preludes and Fugues. This exclamation contains the key to understanding of Maria Yudina’s performing art – a controversial and disputable one that left a profound imprint on the cultural environment of the twentieth century. The 10-album set is the biggest part of Maria Yudina’s surviving studio and concert recordings from the Melodiya archive made between 1948 and 1969.

Divin poeme starts off with an immediate advantage over the others listed above: it has the obvious and perfect coupling.

From the unique trajectory of Scriabin’s career – two decades of ecstasy in its old-fashioned sense and of egotism in its timeless one – come the Second and Third Symphonies plus the two Poems: music raised through the engorgement of sumptuous timbre and chromatic harmony to the richness of foie gras.

Sony Classical is proud to release Lang Lang at the Royal Albert Hall on Blu-Ray. The superstar classical pianist performs a solo piano concert in front of a sold-out audience at the legendary Royal Albert Hall in London. The program features the three Mozart sonatas (K 282, K 283, K 310), Chopin's four Ballades and includes all eight of Lang Lang's encores.

Composed in Russia between 1884 and 1917, the four works appearing on this disc all do so in some kind of disguise. Prokofiev and Scriabin both conceived their respective collections for the piano, and it is later arrangers that have adapted them for string orchestra. Rudolf Barshai took on Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives in 1962, selecting 15 of the 20 brief pieces and arranging them for his own ensemble, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. Scriabin’s Preludes received a similar treatment in 1999 when the Finnish composer Jouni Kaipainen chose 13 from the original 24, rearranging the order they appear in and transposing them in some cases.

Earning praise for his commanding technique, elegant sound and wide-ranging repertoire, Russian Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev was quickly signed to Decca Classics, following his declaration at the Sydney International Piano Competition, where he was also an audience favourite. He has curated an all-Russian album: Rachmaninov (including the Moment-musicaux, which he performed so gloriously at the Competition), Medtner, Scriabin, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky. The album also includes two Concert Études by his late grandmother – Tatiana Nikolayeva.

With this final volume in their three-album series of the symphonies of Alexander Scriabin, Vasily Petrenko and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra present the Symphony No. 1 in E major, Op. 26, and Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, Scriabin's last completed orchestral work, sometimes referred to as the Symphony No. 5 in F sharp major, Op. 60. These works bookend the cycle, yet they are quite different in style and form. The six-movement Symphony No. 1 was completed in 1900, and inhabits the lush sound world of Wagner, so the languid melodies, constantly modulating harmonies, and rich orchestral sonorities suggest something of the fin de siècle nostalgia of late Romanticism.

Shostakovich's Symphony No.8 was written in the summer of 1943, and first performed in November of that year by the USSR Symphony Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky, to whom the work is dedicated. Many scholars have ranked it among the composer's finest scores. Some also say Shostakovich intended the work as a ''tragedy to triumph'' symphony, in the tradition of Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler. This release in Praga's Reminiscences series of audiophile SACD remasterings features an historic live recording from 1961 featuring Mravinsky leading the Leningrad Philharmonic.

Yuja Wang is one of the most technically astounding pianists of our time, with a command of the keyboard matched by sheer muscular strength. Here she turns her attention to Russia and some of its leading pianist-composers. The Rachmaninoff Preludes and Études-Tableaux are rich and swirl with passion, while Scriabin’s Tenth Sonata, a work of mystical imaginings, seethes with dangerous life under her fingers. Briefly looking further afield, a group of Hungarian composer György Ligeti’s tiny Études diverts the attention magically before Prokofiev’s Eighth Piano Sonata, his masterpiece in the form, which Wang characterizes with genuine originality and imagination.