Nikolaï Medtner

Forgotten Melodies

Vergessene Weisen opus 38
Danza festiva
Canzona fluviala
Vergessene Weisen opus 40
Danza col canto
Danza jubilosa
Vergessene Weisen opus 38
Canzona serenata
Vergessene Weisen opus 39
Meditazione
Romanza
Primavera
Canzona matinata
Sonata tragica

Arabesques

Drei Arabesken opus 7
Ein Idyll
Tragoedie-Fragment n°1
Tragoedie-Fragment n°2

Elena Filonova, piano

Production, Sound Engineer:
Lubov Doronina.
Mastering : Pavel Lavrenenkov.
Recorded in Moscow, March 2004

AR RE-SE 2005-9

Jean Roy, Le Monde de la musique, December 2005

From a Germano-Baltic family, Nikolai Medtner is one of the most singular personalities of the Russian music scene. His life wiles down to: studies at the Moscow Conservatory, exile in Germany from 1921 onwards, then London and Paris, a career shared between piano recitals and compositions. In his book on piano music, Guy Sacre consecrates over 20 pages to Medtner whom he defines as follows: “He puts himself in the Muscovite category, who, far from the nationalism of ‘The Russian Five’, practise a cosmopolitan art form: a complicated way of saying that they have German models”.
Brahms’s influence did not hinder the composer from being loyal to his home country. The Forgotten Melodies, from which Elena Filonova has recorded some extracts (although the opus 39 is complete), originate from the reading of one of Lermontov’s poems, The Angel. In the arms of an angel, a small child hears the celestial melodies that he will run after all his life. Medtner’s angel was surely Russian....
The musician’s romanticism is present in his virtuoso piano scripts, bringing it closer to Rachmaninov, his friend and admirer, that is if it doesn’t attach itself to it as well, as if through a feeling of revolt, moments of rupture, where the composer stands back hidden in a universe with no complaisance. That is Medtner’s greatness in fact: being both very modern through his daring harmonies and free rhythms, and romantic in his own personal style through the “confessional aspect” that his music often dons when he talks about the Russian Angel.
Student of Emil Gilels, who introduced her to Medtner’s work, Elena Filonova who lives in France but who often gives concerts in Russia, plays the Forgotten Melodies and the Arabesques with great sonority, deep understanding of his sheet music and strength of conviction from which we cannot resist.

Michel Fleury, Classica-Répertoire, February 2006

An intelligently composed program that could act as the introduction to this Russian master: extracts from the 3 great cycles inspired by Lermontov’s poem, The Angel, text that gives the key to understanding how the musician was artistically inspired. The artist’s existence seems to be one long crusade to rediscover the echo of those celestial melodies heard at birth by each human being when delivered to earth from heaven by an angel. Festive dances, elegiac or fantastical, calm or jubilous songs, these Forgotten Motives (1920) demonstrate a rare formal perfection.
The beautiful counterpoint, the rhythmic complexity and the harmonious fulfilment are hidden within the piano’s sheet music, the plasticity of which stands comparison to the best of Chopin or Schumann. Elena Filonova’s style demonstrates an incredible clearness allowing her to play quite rapid tempos that do not tarnish the rich polyphony of Medtner’s music. She is an elegant pianist whose natural distinction evokes the famous American pianist Constance Keene in Rachmaninov’s Preludes (Philips). The slightly improvised profusion of music gains coherency, and this Apollonian approach underlines the implicit Beethoven legacy within this Russian pianist’s style (...).

Emili Blasco, Scherzo, n°211, September 2006, Spain

This is the kind of recording which catches the auditor, thanks both to the works themselves and to the superlative way they are played. Once more, the CD allows us to savour the art of a composer who, in Spain, does not enjoy enough prestige to be on the bill of concert halls. The irresistible, relentless strength of Nikolai Medtner’s music (Festive dances, Meditations, Romances, Canzonas, Arabesques as well as the Sonata Tragica) spreads throughout the disc under the fingers of Elena Filonova, a truly exceptional pianist who radiates positive expressiveness. She merges with the music in kind of an inseparable binomial entity. Her sound is fully bodied and has a density very few pianists ever succeed to reach. It stems from both the specific weight given to the forearm and from her extraordinary sense of rhythm and phrasing. From a musical and pianistic standpoint, Elena Filonova’s playing is tonic as revealed in this exceptional CD which offers a mix of powerful, sensitive, tender and expressive performances. Elena Filonova’s relationship with this repertoire is intimate: played as if they were coming from her deepest soul, the works sound like having matured under her fingers. Elena Filonova revitalises Medtner’s complex scores, bringing them the required energy, breathing life into them through a virtuosity which is never superficial: technique wins when it serves music. The balance between Elena’s two hands is perfect: inner voices played by the left hand are well heard thanks to consistent and strong articulations. In a nutshell, here is a great pianist whom we had not heard of before. Highly recommended, this CD is a must for any music lover.