Nikolai Roslavets

Nikolay Roslavets (1881 to 1944) is known for his new system of tone organisation, built on what he called synthetic chords, and his shorter piano pieces are where he developed the technique. This two-disc set, played by Olga Andryushchenko, gathers all his surviving piano music. It runs from the Piano Sonata No. 1 and Trois Compositions of 1914 to the Piano Sonata No. 5 of 1923, the last piano work that has come down to us. After his death his flat was searched and manuscripts were seized, the Third and Fourth Sonatas are lost, and several pieces here are heard for the first time.

The recordings were made at the CMS Studio in Moscow between March 27 and May 30, 2016, on a Steinway Model D, with Galina Katunina as producer and engineer. The musicologist Marina Lobanova wrote the notes and reconstructed the Valse of 1919 and a Prélude. Both are first recordings, as are the Berceuse and Danse of 1919 and excerpts from the Quatre Compositions of 1921. Each surviving sonata is in one movement, and the first takes its lead from Scriabin's single-movement sonatas, as do many of the early miniatures. Between the sonatas come the Prélude and Deux Compositions of 1915, the Deux Poèmes of 1920, the Trois Études of 1914 and the Cinq Préludes written between 1919 and 1922. The Piano Sonata No. 2 of 1916 closes the first disc. Stephen Barber, in MusicWeb International (2017), wrote that "all these works are beautifully realised by Olga Andryushchenko", while adding that the title ought to include the word surviving.

Two CDs on Grand Piano, catalogue number GP743-44, released in 2017, about ninety-eight minutes.