Listening to Chopin’s set of 24 Op. 28 Préludes played in sequence by a pianist as deft and intuitive as Mikhail Pletnev is a transcendent experience. On his first studio recording for Deutsche Grammophon in 19 years, Pletnev pairs these classic miniatures with the 24 Op. 11 Préludes by Alexander Scriabin.
The Russian composer revered Chopin so much that five to six decades later he produced his own cycle covering every key, as Chopin had: each major key followed by its relative minor, in order of the cycle of fifths.
Pletnev brings the same thoughtful approach to both composers. I am a great proponent of judicious use of rubatos. Some pianists treat interpretive freedom as a license to stretch and compress tempos to the point of unrecognizability. Pletnev seems to model his tempos and rhythmic freedom after human speech, or, where a pace is fast, the pace of thought. This, together with an acute but measured sense of dynamics and great clarity of touch, makes the resulting performances feel thoroughly natural, neither over-thought nor over-lush nor forced.
For both composers, the short format enabled the foregrounding of a particular facet of the composer’s artistry. Scriabin wrote his préludes at a time when the Romantic sensibility held strong influence over him. In these sensitive performances, I can imagine a listener casually familiar with Chopin believing that some of the Scriabin is actually Chopin.
True, Scriabin didn’t have his predecessor’s gift for melody, which was so important to Chopin’s work – indeed, without which Chopin wouldn’t be the longstanding favorite he has been for so long. The kinship is in the modes and, just as much, the feel – the coloration, the flowing right-hand runs and loping left-hand accompaniments, the aggressive rhythmic attack in examples like Chopin’s No. 22 in G minor or Scriabin’s No. 6 in B minor.
Pletnev’s Shigeru Kawai SK-EX piano sounds extraordinarily present when recorded well, as here, in the Emily Berliner Studios in Berlin. There’s no fuzziness in the lower range, no harshness in the upper, a tribute to both the musician’s touch and the instrument itself. The music sounds glorious in my earbuds and in big speakers, but also quite listenable over cheap computer speakers and even the tiny ones built into my laptop. I expect I’ll be listening to this album for years to come.
Chopin & Scriabin: Préludes from Mikhail Pletnev is out now on Deutsche Grammophon.
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