IDAGIO | Scriabin: Piano Sonatas Nos. 4 & 5 – Janáček: On an Overgrown Path; 1905 Sonata etc. 00602448807380

Featuring

Stephen Hough
Alexander Scriabin
Leoš Janáček

Did you know?

1/7

Performer Biography

Pianist Stephen Hough is recognized as a leading pianist of his generation, known for integrating historical imagination with modern scholarship and has received a MacArthur Fellowship and a CBE.

Composer's Artistic Vision

The album features two Slavic composers, Alexander Scriabin and Leoš Janáček, who, despite their differences, both possessed high energy and powerful sexuality that inspired their lives and works.

Interpretation

Pianist Stephen Hough intentionally alternates works by Scriabin and Janáček on this album to highlight the beauty of each composer's contrasting style.

Composer Biography

Alexander Scriabin was born into a wealthy Russian family and was known for his mystical self-importance, while Leoš Janáček, the son of a Moravian schoolmaster, faced financial constraints in his musical education.

Compositional Technique

Leoš Janáček characteristically uses small, often obsessively repeated cells within an unsettled harmonic language, contrasting with Alexander Scriabin's long, sensual lines and rich harmonies.

Composition History

Leoš Janáček's Piano Sonata '1.X.1905, From the street' commemorates the bayoneting death of František Pavlík, a Moravian carpenter, by Austrian forces for supporting a Czech-speaking university.

Composer Biography

Leoš Janáček's solo piano compositions were mainly written between 1900 and 1912, a period that marked a personal and professional turning point for him, including the death of his daughter Olga.