Melnikov’s control of texture, colour and mood rivals even the grand master, Horowitz. Outstanding.

Writing with touching enthusiasm and insight, 33-year-old Alexander Melnikov is clearly lost in wonder over Scriabin's strange and evercontroversial genius. Referring to the composer's 'eclectic mixture of mysticism, theosophy and a hefty dose of megalomaniac ambition', he offers up a richly comprehensive recital ranging from Op 11 to Op 74 – from personal if Chopin-inspired beginnings to the dark, opalescent obsessions of his final years. And never for a moment would you doubt his nationality, his poetic empathy or his superb pianistic mastery.
At the same time Scriabin's idiosyncrasy can rarely have sounded more natural, his music emerging as if new-minted, improvised, as it were, in the first white heat of inspiration.
Whether whipping up a storm in the Second Sonata's tempest-tossed finale or contrasting a clipped, even severe way, with the Third Sonata's opening Dramatico with a truly glowing and interior sense of lyricism, he is ideally attuned to Scriabin's volatile imagination. The Op 57 pieces emerge teasingly enigmatic despite their titles (Désir and Caresse dansée) and the Ninth Sonata can rarely have had its subtitle (Black Mass) or instruction (légendaire) more acutely observed. More generally, while wholly individual, there is something of Martha Argerich's pace and nervous vitality, her flame-like brilliance, about these performances.
Harmonia Mundi's sound is suitably vivid and immediate. The recital is dedicated to the memory of Vladimir Sofronitsky – for Melnikov and many others the finest performer of Scriabin's music and a pianist who, according to Sviatoslav Richter, 'discovered an elixir of life in Scriabin's upward spiral'.

…33-year-old Alexander Melnikov… offers up a richly comprehensive recital… Scriabin's idiosyncrasy can rarely have sounded more natural, his music emerging as if new-minted, improvised, as it were, in the first white heat of inspiration. Whether whipping up a storm in the Second Sonata's tempest-tossed finale or contrasting a clipped, even severe way, with the Third Sonata's opening Dramatico with a truly glowing and interior sense of lyricism, he is ideally attuned to Scriabin's volatile imagination. ...while wholly individual, there is something of Martha Argerich's pace and nervous vitality, her flame-like brilliance, about these performances.