September 3, 2017

Yevgeny Sudbin. Photograph: Clive Barda/PR Image

Yevgeny Sudbin is one of the most interesting pianists around, and his intense playing of Scriabin’s visionary Fifth Sonata opens this disc. It’s his one contribution to an evening of live music-making from the Tippet Rise Art Center, Montana, north of Yellowstone National Park – clearly an inspiring country retreat like Aldeburgh or Dartington in this country. Rachmaninov (the Suite for two pianos, the Vocalise in a version for cello and piano) rubs shoulders with contemporary music by A ntón García Abril. A gem of a Chopin encore by our own Stephen Hough leads to the Scriabin bookend: a weird arrangement of The Poem of Ecstasy for two pianos with solo trumpet.

By: Nicholas Kenyon

Read at: The Guardian