Simon Smith - Alfred Schnittke: Complete Piano Music (2014) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

CD1
01. Piano Sonata No. 1: I. Lento
02. Piano Sonata No. 1: II. Allegretto
03. Piano Sonata No. 1: III. Lento
04. Piano Sonata No. 1: IV. Allegro
05. Piano Sonata No. 2: I. Moderato
06. Piano Sonata No. 2: II. Lento
07. Piano Sonata No. 2: III. Allegro moderato
08. Piano Sonata No. 3: I. Lento
09. Piano Sonata No. 3: II. Allegro
10. Piano Sonata No. 3: III. Lento
11. Piano Sonata No. 3: IV. Allegro
12. Variations

CD2
01. Prelude and Fugue
02. Improvisation and Fugue
03. Variations on a Chord
04. Little Piano Pieces: I. Folk Song
05. Little Piano Pieces: II. In the Mountains
06. Little Piano Pieces: III. Cuckoo and Woodpecker
07. Little Piano Pieces: IV. Melody
08. Little Piano Pieces: V. Tale
09. Little Piano Pieces: VI. Play
10. Little Piano Pieces: VII. Children's Piece
11. Little Piano Pieces: VIII. March
12. Homage to Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich
13. Five Aphorisms: I. Moderato assai
14. Five Aphorisms: II. Allegretto
15. Five Aphorisms: III. Lento
16. Five Aphorisms: IV. Senza tempo
17. Five Aphorisms: V. Grave
18. Sonatina for Piano (Four Hands)
19. Cadenza to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K. 491: First Movement (1975)
20. Two Cadenzas to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467: ... to first movement (1980)
21. Two Cadenzas to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467: ... to third movement (1980)
22. Cadenza to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, K. 503: First Movement (1983)
23. Two Cadenzas to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major, K. 39: ... to first movement (1990)
24. Two Cadenzas to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 2 in B flat major, K39: ... to third movement (1990)



Schnittke’s largest works for the piano are the three sonatas, which all date from the later part of his output. Piano Sonata No 1 (1987) is a substantial work by any standard, structured in four movements played without a break, and lasting upward of half an hour. The emotional journey of the piece is in many ways typical of the composer’s work in the years following his first stroke. Piano Sonata No 2 (1990–91), written for Schnittke’s wife Irina, follows a more traditional three-movement pattern. The opening is rather sensuous and overtly ‘Romantic’, wistful and bittersweet, its delicate counterpoint recalling Berg’s Op. 1 Sonata. Piano Sonata No 3 (1992), first performed by Boris Berman in 1996, is an example of what we might call Schnittke’s ‘late style’, pared down and without the extravagance of some of the works of the 1980s though of similar intensity. It was his last work for solo piano.

The shorter works included here, which along with the sonatas comprise Schnittke’s entire published output for solo piano (including one piece for piano duet and another for six hands at one instrument), are mostly earlier than the sonatas, and are presented here in chronological order, with the cadenzas for four of Mozart’s piano concertos as a sort of appendix.

Simon Smith studied piano with Richard Beauchamp [to whom these discs are dedicated] and composition with Tom David Wilson. As a pianist he has performed many of the landmarks of the 20th-century piano repertoire, most notably many of Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke and the Piano Concerto and complete Etudes of György Ligeti. Following a performance of which latter he was acclaimed as ‘a phenomenon – nothing daunts him, technically or musically’ The Scotsman. For Delphian Records he has recorded solo music by James MacMillan and Stuart MacRae (Delphian DCD34009), Hafliði Hallgrímsson (DCD34051) and Thomas Wilson (DCD34079).

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