Scriabin: The Complete Piano Sonatas Peter Donohoe

• Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915): Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 6:
• 1 I. Allegro con fuoco 09:13
• 2 II. [Andante] 05:01
• 3 III. Presto 03:13
• 4 IV. Funebre 06:29
• Piano Sonata No. 2 in G-Sharp Minor, Op. 19 "Sonata-Fantasy":
• 5 I. Andante 08:13
• 6 II. Presto 03:56
• Piano Sonata No. 3 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 23:
• 7 I. Drammatico 06:48
• 8 II. Allegretto 02:24
• 9 III. Andante 04:01
• 10 IV. Presto con fuoco 05:25
• Piano Sonata No. 4 in F-Sharp Major, Op. 30:
• 11 I. Andante 02:59
• 12 II. Prestissimo volando 04:40
• Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 53:
• 13 Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 53 12:05
• Piano Sonata No. 6 in G Major, Op. 62:
• 14 Piano Sonata No. 6 in G Major, Op. 62 13:13
• Piano Sonata No. 7, Op. 64, "White Mass":
• 15 Piano Sonata No. 7, Op. 64, "White Mass" 11:47
• Piano Sonata No. 8 in A Major, Op. 66:
• 16 Piano Sonata No. 8 in A Major, Op. 66 13:27
• Piano Sonata No. 9 in F Major, Op. 68, "Black Mass":
• 17 Piano Sonata No. 9 in F Major, Op. 68, "Black Mass" 07:52
• Piano Sonata No. 10 in C Major, Op. 70:
• 18 Piano Sonata No. 10 in C Major, Op. 70 12:59
• Vers la flamme, Op. 72:
• 19 Vers la flamme, Op. 72 06:29
• Total Runtime 02:20:14

Info for Scriabin: The Complete Piano Sonatas

This month's SOMM release will no doubt be a special treat for the many fans of Peter Donohoe's recordings: a two-album slimline set of Scriabin's Ten Piano Sonatas, ending with Vers la Flamme Op. 72, one of his last pieces for piano, written in 1914.

„Scriabin (1872-1915) was a close contemporary of Rachmaninov but died nearly 30 years earlier. His 10 piano sonatas span the whole of his relatively short adulthood. Accordingly they range stylistically from straightforward, often Rachmaninov-like passion (sonatas 1 and 2) to the more fantastical landscapes familiar from Scriabin's distinctive orchestral works such as The Poem of Ecstasy. Formal structures give way to organically shaped single movements, at once radiant, mysterious and improvisatory. Peter Donohoe is a masterly guide, his playing both unearthly and earthy. With his visionary notions of creation and the cosmos, Scriabin can feel like too much of a good thing. Donohoe reins him in just enough, and makes a powerful case.“(The Observer)

„Peter Donohoe came late to Scriabin, the composer wholly absent from his repertoire during his first 40 years at the piano. This rich, varied and often illuminating survey of the 10 piano sonatas (with Vers la flamme serving as a ripe encore) bears all the marks of the evangelicalism of the newly converted. Especially admirable is Donohoe's trajectory from the three early sonatas solidly entrenched in romanticism to the later arcane works revelling in ever-increasing complexity. Donohoe lights on much of interest throughout; the darkly exhilarating funeral march in the First, imbuing the Fourth with Debussy-like fantasy and jazz-like spontaneity, gleefully firing up the incandescent White Mass that is the Seventh, lending poetic delicacy to the vertiginous virtuosity of the Tenth. All of the pieces benefit from an intelligent interrogation that encompasses the conventional and the idiosyncratic with an eloquence that binds both seamlessly together. Demanding but rewarding.“ (Classical Ear)

Peter Donohoe, piano

Peter Donohoe
In the years since his unprecedented success as Silver Medal winner of the 1982 7th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Peter Donohoe has built an extraordinary world-wide career, encompassing a huge repertoire and over forty years’ experience as a pianist, as well as continually exploring many other avenues in music-making. He is acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for his musicianship, stylistic versatility and commanding technique.

During recent seasons Peter Donohoe’s performances included appearances with the Dresden Staatskapelle with Myung-Whun Chung, Gothenburg Symphony with Gustavo Dudamel and Gurzenich Orchestra with Ludovic Morlot. He also performed with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and played both Brahms Concertos with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Last season his engagements included appearances with the City of Birmingham Symphony and Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestras and an extensive tour o South America. He also took part in a major Messiaen Festival in the Spanish city of Cuenca, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

Peter Donohoe played with the Berliner Philharmoniker in Sir Simon Rattle’s opening concerts as Music Director. He has also recently performed with all the major London Orchestras, Royal Concertgebouw, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Munich Philharmonic, Swedish Radio, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Vienna Symphony and Czech Philharmonic Orchestras. He was an annual visitor to the BBC Proms for seventeen years and has appeared at many other festivals including six consecutive visits as resident artist to the Edinburgh Festival, eleven highly acclaimed appearances at the Bath International Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron in France, and at the Ruhr and Schleswig Holstein Festivals in Germany. In the United States, his appearances have included the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit Symphony Orchestras. Since 1984 he has visited all the major Australian Orchestras many times, and since 1989 he has made several major tours of New Zealand with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. He has recently returned from a highly acclaimed tour of Argentina with the National Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela.

He has worked with many of the worlds’ greatest conductors including Christoph Eschenbach, Neeme Jarvi, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Andrew Davis and Yevgeny Svetlanov. More recently he has appeared as soloist with the next generation of excellent conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, Robin Ticciati and Daniel Harding.

He is a keen chamber musician and performs frequently with the pianist Martin Roscoe. They have given performances in London and at the Edinburgh Festival and have recorded discs of Gershwin and Rachmaninov. Other musical partners have included the Maggini Quartet, with whom he has made recordings of several great British chamber works.

In 2001 Naxos released a disc of music by Gerald Finzi, with Peter Donohoe as soloist, the first of a major series of recordings which aims to raise the public's awareness of British piano concerto repertoire through concert performance and recordings. Discs of music by Alan Rawsthorne, Sir Arthur Bliss, Christian Darnton, Alec Rowley, Howard Ferguson, Roberta Gerhard, Kenneth Alwyn, Thomas Pitfield, John Gardner and Hamilton Harty have since been released to great critical acclaim.

Peter Donohoe has made many fine recordings on EMI Records, which have won awards including the Grand Prix International du Disque Liszt for his recording of the Liszt Sonata in B minor and the Gramophone Concerto award for the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no. 2. His recordings of Messiaen with the Netherlands Wind Ensemble for Chandos Records and Litolff for Hyperion have also received widespread acclaim. His recording of Brahms’ 1st Concerto with Svetlanov and the Philharmonia Orchestra was voted best available recording by the US magazine Stereo Review.

He studied at Chetham’s School of Music for seven years, graduated in music at Leeds University, where he studied composition with Alexander Goehr, and the Royal Northern College of Music, studying piano with Derek Wyndham. He then went on to study in Paris with Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod. His prize-winning performances at the British Liszt Competition in London in 1976, the Bartok-Liszt Piano Competition in Budapest in the same year, and the Leeds International Piano Competition in 1981 helped build a major career in the UK and Europe. Then his activity in the competitive world culminated in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1982, which shot his name into world-wide prominence. In June 2011 he returned to Moscow as a jury member for the 14th International Tchaikovsky Competition.

He is vice-president of the Birmingham Conservatoire and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates of Music from the Universities of Birmingham, Central England, Warwick, East Anglia, Leicester and The Open University.

Peter Donohoe was awarded a C.B.E. for services to music in the 2010 New Year’s Honours List.

Booklet for Scriabin: The Complete Piano Sonatas