Schnittke: Piano Music, Vol. 1 (SACD)

Pianist Nicolas Stavy, who has already released recordings of works by Boris Tishchenko and Dmitri Shostakovich, now presents the first part of a complete recording of Alfred Schnittke's compositions for solo piano. The recording includes works from various creative periods of the Russian-German composer - from the 1950s, which Schnittke himself described as the "years of darkness", to the 1990s, a time characterized by both world fame and serious illness. Although Schnittke wrote relatively little music for piano, each work reflects - or even anticipates - the various phases of his career. The "Five Preludes and Fugue" and the "Prelude and Fugue" belong to Schnittke's first creative phase, when he was still under the influence of Shostakovich. The "Little Piano Pieces", composed for the composer's six-year-old son, are an example of his "polystylism", which juxtaposes and combines music of different styles from the past and present. The "Sonata No. 2" and the "Five Aphorisms", both from 1990, return to a more ascetic and abstract language with a more sombre tone, no doubt reflecting his severe health problems.