Feinberg, a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, influenced several generations of pianists and had a reputation as a profound and sensitive pianist for over four decades.
Performer Biography
Marc-André Hamelin, the pianist on this album, is known for his exploration of unfamiliar pianistic repertoire and has recorded some sixty albums for Hyperion.
Historical Context
Feinberg removed the original epigraph from Oswald Spengler's 'The Decline of the West' from his Piano Sonata No. 6 in the 1930s because Soviet authorities declared Spengler an ideologue of fascism.
Composer Biography
Samuil Feinberg, the composer, was born in Odessa; his father had been imprisoned for possessing forbidden revolutionary writings before his birth.
Composition History
The Piano Sonata No. 3 on this album is presented in its original manuscript version because the composer's lifelong friend, Anatoly Alexandrov, significantly recomposed the opening prelude in a later edition.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Feinberg's Piano Sonata No. 4 was inspired by Fyodor Tyutchev's poem 'Night Wind,' which Anatoly Alexandrov suggested could serve as an epigraph for all his works.
Composer Biography
For his final examination at the Conservatory, Feinberg amazed examiners by learning the complete Well-tempered Clavier by heart.
