Medtner's teachers included Anatoly Galli, a pupil of Nikolai Zverev (who also taught Rachmaninoff and Scriabin), and Sergei Taneev, a pupil of Tchaikovsky.
Compositional Technique
The 'Forgotten Melodies' cycles are highly cohesive, with compositions sharing elements and deriving from the same 'soggetti,' allowing a sonata to share motifs with a dance or romanza.
Composition History
The 'Forgotten Melodies' were created from musical fragments Medtner jotted down in notebooks, which he called 'soggetti,' and later developed into the three cycles.
Recording & Production
This recording is dedicated to the memory of American virtuoso Earl Wild, who was Mattia Ometto's mentor and introduced him to Medtner's music.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Medtner was considered a champion of tradition and the "last of the Romantics," valuing formal structures and counterpoint while maintaining a heartfelt lyricism.
Composer Biography
Nikolai Medtner, the composer, came from a German family that had lived in Russia for two generations, and he grew up in a culturally stimulating environment.
Composer Biography
Medtner emigrated in 1921, settling in England in 1935, where he met Edna Iles, his pupil, and Maharajah Jaya Chamaraja Wadiyar, who financed recordings of Medtner playing his own works.
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