Pianomania: Boris Giltburg

The main highlight is Alexander Scriabin’s etudes, which are extravagant in the very best sense of the word. In them, the professed synaesthete powerfully contrasts opposite forces: the lyrical and the apocalyptic collide and are hardly separable – a tremendous technical challenge awaits the interpreter.

As a counterbalance, Giltburg performs arresting works by Scriabin’s contemporaries. With his virtuosic Op. 2, Prokofiev presented himself in 1909 as a highly promising composer and pianist. For Sergei Rachmaninov, in contrast, the »Etudes-tableaux« of 1917 was the last great composition he finished in Russia, and in the work he pays his last respects to the deceased Scriabin.