Dmitri Alexeev - Scriabin: Complete Etudes (2015)

Scriabins Études span the whole of his composing career, marking a highly transitional period in classical music. From a very young age, Scriabin wrote miniatures for the piano, and his early Chopin-esque compositions earned him the nickname the Russian Chopin frustrating for the young composer who was eager to look beyond the established forms of waltzes and mazurkas. While many of the earlier Études bear hallmarks of the Romantic era, Scriabin soon began to explore his own unique tonality, starting from Op.42 with its noticeable use of tritones, and later when he centred on the so-called Mystic chord, based around perfect and augmented fourths. Scriabin himself struggled for years with his piano technique, after he injured his hand permanently by over-practising notoriously virtuosic works by Liszt and Balakirev. This didnt stop him writing technically challenging music for the piano, with thrillingly fast runs in parallel ninths and fifths and his trademark cross-rhythms in each hand.

Only a performer with vast experience and technical understanding can attempt repertoire of this kind. Russian pianist Dmitri Alexeev has been playing in concert halls for over 30 years, counting performances with the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam among his many career highlights. He is a Professor of Advanced Piano at the prestigious Royal College of Music in London, allowing him to spread his wealth of knowledge and musical intelligence to a new generation of students.