Esben Tange sums up the unusual pairing of the composers on this release effectively in his liner notes:
“Both the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin and the Danish composer Rued Langgaard were ‘sun-burnt’ – musical loners who in a related way believed that through their art they could light a sacred fire and pave the way for a spiritual world revolution. […] Despite the fact that Scriabin and Langgaard aimed at the greatest possible, they are both very much masters of the intimate format. For both of them, the piano was a primary medium. Via the piano we get close to their innermost thoughts.”
The 26-year-old Danish pianist Gustav Piekut provides a recital that alternates four pieces by Scriabin with three of Langgaard’s.
A pair of works imbued with a late Romantic sensibility begin the journey this recording presents. Scriabin’s Trois morceaux, Op. 45 (1904–05), is a trio of individually slight yet atmospheric miniatures. Feuillet d’album is wistful and reflective, whereas the ensuing 26-second Poème fantasque nervously anticipates the closing Prélude, in which Scriabin discovers something of his searching mature idiom. Langgaard’s Sponsa christi taedium vitae. Fantasia virtuosa, BVN 297 (1944), speaks unforcefully of the composer’s own religious nature through the warmth of tone and texture in his writing. What is immediately impressive in Piekut’s playing, quite apart from the delicacy of his touch, is his ability to let the music breathe and, thus, register its own inner beauty.
In his single movement Piano Sonata No. 10, Op. 70 (1913), Scriabin sought to crystalise what could be achieved within a compact form whilst exploring new and daring tonalities. Piekut’s playing holds little in reserve. He conjours the misty sonorities of its opening with beguiling effect before dispatching the successive trills convincingly against the lingering shifts of Scriabin’s somewhat pensive developing musical argument. Even in the wilder passages of the movement’s second half, everything is musically and technically secure in Piekut’s hands. The irony that Scriabin arrived back at the note of C after seeking to find an alternative tonality is caught with some inevitability here.
Langgaard’s Afgrundsmusik (Music of the Abyss), BVN 169 (1921–24), written in Venice, sets an altogether more destructive path that is merciless in its power. Cast in two parts, Langgaard pits a theme extracted from Liszt’s B-minor sonata against a chorale of his own devising. Initially the writing is demonstrative, rising to unremitting raw savagery that almost cannibalises itself by the conclusion of the Frenetico second part. Piekut’s playing meets the demands made at every turn to make a convincing case for this music. He’s aided in no small part by the ambient warmth of the recorded acoustic. You begin to realise just why the Danes long considered Langgaard something of a musical outsider.
Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 9, Op. 68 ‘Messe noire’ (1912–13), perfectly partners the preceding Langgaard work. Although Scriabin claimed it amongst his most depraved works, this comes through only gradually. Again, I am drawn in by the innate sense of touch that Piekut brings to proceedings. He captures the mystérieusement murmuré (in mysteriously murmuring fashion) fingerings wonderfully so the music does indeed almost seem to foreshadow itself. Quite apart from that, listen to how he skilfully integrates the sonata’s secondary material without disrupting the flow of main ideas.
A pair of works exploring the semitone round out this voyage of musical discovery. Despite this similarity, there’s a contrasting approach to be explored and enjoyed, thanks to Piekut’s thoughtful programming. Lannggard’s The Flame Chambers, inspired by Dante, draws the listener downwards to the flames of hell. Whereas in Scriabin’s Vers la flamme, to quote Esben Tange again, “we encounter aspiring music full of sweetness, which with an increasingly feverish nerve accumulates energy before, striving towards the sun, it culminates in a heavenly explosion.” As elsewhere on this disc, I can find no argument with Piekut’s enviable pianistic gifts: in this music he is a heavenly guide.
Only one fly in the ointment: coming in at a shade over 56 minutes the playing time is disappointingly short. Particularly so given that there’s plenty more piano repertoire from both composers an artist of Piekut’s quality could have usefully explored. More please, and soon!
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