Piano Works

POSTNIKOVA YUDINA BAKHCHIEV MAZALOVA KASPROV

Firma Melodiya presents a collection of piano pieces by Modest Mussorgsky. “Mussorgsky was not only a first-class pianist, he was hardly inferior to Rubinstein”, one of the composer’s contemporaries spoke of his pianistic talent. The well-deserved popularity of the Pictures at an Exhibition unintentionally eclipsed the rest of the composer’s instrumental works written throughout his life. However, it is his piano music that enables us to trace a profound evolution of the composer’s short but extremely eventful creative career. This album features a complete collection of the composer’s piano pieces – from the Porte-enseigne polka composed at the age of thirteen to the Crimean landscape sketches of 1879 and 1880 inspired by the journey to the Russian south made by the composer together with singer Darya Leonova. Some of the pieces are a sort of sketches for his vocal works and fragments from his operas. Mussorgsky’s pieces are performed here by Viktoria Postnikova and Alexander Bakhchiev, the leading Russian pianists of the late 20th century. A number of pieces were recorded by the great pianist of the first half of the previous century Maria Yudina. Two pieces were recorded in 2016 and 2017 by young performers and prize-winners of prestigious international competitions Elizaveta Mazalova and Sergei Kasprov.

Price: $27.98