ProStudioMasters.com

"Extremes of dynamics and registers, rapid shifts of mood, are the name of the game in this intriguingly constructed programme...The real reason to investigate this album is Gadjiev’s selection of pieces by Alexander Tcherepnin." - BBC Music Magazine "Even knowing what’s in store from Prokofiev’s Sarcasms doesn’t entirely prepare you for the sheer venom he unleashes at the opening, nor for the intelligence with which he moderates that attack thereafter." - Gramophone "We start with a jolt: a brutal gesture in Prokofiev, almost entirely lacking a melody. From that point on, the moods in the pieces blend into one another. I found it in a poem by Konstantin Balmont. One evening in Saint Petersburg in 1917, Balmont heard music by Prokofiev, who was also present, and he wrote a poem on the spot. Prokofiev was so taken with Balmont's poem that he spontaneously chose the quote Visions fugitives as the title for his collection of miniatures. After I discovered that poem, I read more by the same author to get a feeling for the atmosphere, and The Bark of Yearning was my favourite. All these pieces seem to evoke a "dark meditation". Even in lively passages there is an underlying mood of brooding: it is the atmosphere of the early 20th century and the cultural milieu of Symbolism. These are brief, abstract visions of different worlds. You can sense that a single chord or series of sounds could escalate to evoke an entire universe. Or take the Sarcasms, with which I begin the CD: they stand for an experimental avant-garde, a quasi-scientific investigation, probably connected with the mood in Saint Petersburg immediately prior to the October Revolution in 1917. The passages are brutal, thus sarcastic. Two different worlds always coexist in Prokofiev: one is full of fantasy, imagination, and wonder; the other is eerie and grotesque. In the end we left the title off as the program says it all." - Alexander Gadjiev