Scriabin - Piano Sonatas Nos. 1-10

Scriabin was an ambitious composer. A romantic alchemist, he saw his music as a transmuting agent. Through its influence pain would become happiness and hate become love, culminating in a phoenix-like... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010More…

[Peter Donohoe] finds a nobility in the First Sonata’s closing ‘Funebre’, bringing a curious reflective quality to its ‘Quasi niente’ central section. — BBC Music Magazine, April 2017, 3 out of 5 starsMore…

Recorded on Scriabin's own Bechstein by the man who married the composer's daughter Elena, with the gaps filled in by Soviet pianism's ruling deities, this is quintessentially authentic. — BBC Music Magazine, January 2016, 5 out of 5 starsMore…

Obsessive patterns, harmonies and intervals seem to spin in interstellar space… This is an invaluable issue and a formidable achievement finely recorded. — Gramophone Magazine, May 2008More…

Maltempo has an excellent command of the instrument and is responsive to the multi-dimensional texture and complex harmonies of the music. But for the mind-altering Scriabin potion to work,... — Gramophone Magazine, December 2019More…

Ohlsson delivers the single best performance with his account of Sonata No. 9, Black Mass. Here he appears genuinely engaged with Scriabin’s febrile world…Consistent qualities throughout Ohlsson’s... — BBC Music Magazine, April 2017, 3 out of 5 starsMore…