This album, "Semyon Alexeyevich Barmotin: Piano Music • 3," features world première recordings.
Composer Biography
Semyon Barmotin, born in St Petersburg in 1877, was part of the same generation of Russian composers as Alexander Scriabin and Igor Stravinsky.
Composition History
Barmotin's Ballade in B flat minor, Op. 10, for piano, is one of the few ballades for the instrument composed in Russia, and possibly the first of its kind.
Composer Biography
Semyon Barmotin and Fedir Stepanovych Akimenko, to whom Barmotin dedicated his Ballade for piano, shared many biographical parallels, including childhood training at the Imperial Chapel and later teaching at the St Petersburg Conservatory.
Performer Biography
Christopher Williams, the pianist on this album, is a staff pianist at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and pianist for both the BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales.
Compositional Technique
Unlike Chopin's ballades, Barmotin's Ballade in B flat minor, Op. 10, reveals a ternary form reminiscent of a sonata-form movement, with themes undergoing metamorphoses in the central section.
Performer Biography
Christopher Williams has released three albums of world première recordings by Semyon Barmotin, an undeservedly neglected composer, influenced by his first teacher Walter Ryan.
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