Maybe music remembers…
I hate to write about someone else’s piano album. Primarily because of the rarity of unique piano performance today, as opposed to the overabundance of piano music in these days. Since piano is my own instrument, I have been tired of talking about the people in the industry that I claim to know so well of. I always redirect myself to talk about the works instead, even if I am fully aware of the fact that this work wouldn’t have existed at all without the brilliant performer behind/in front/besides (??).
Nonetheless, I feel terribly sad that Anatol Ugorski passed away earlier this week.
I admire his music.
Anatol’s Scriabin is my first ever exposure to Scriabin—before I was even aware of who Scriabin is. Trifonov released his own recording at a later point. Anatol’s interpretation has imprinted into my mind about how this music should sound, how the highs and lows should be laid out, and what role F# serves in the span of Scriabin’s compositional career.
I learned about Anatol through his Schubert. At that point, I was going through Schubert’s list of compositions. I came across this album. Since then I have been returning to this album one time after another.
Who could not be touched by the poignant scales in the slow movement?
I was exposed to Davidbündlertänze not until sophomore year in college — when I first arrived in Michigan and went to a recital of Arthur Greene (who later became my teacher). Greene programmed Robert with Brahms’ Handel Variations & Scriabin 3rd sonata. That concert made me want to become the pianist to play and master those treasures. Till this day, I couldn’t shake off the magic of the Eusebius-Florestan dynamic, nor could I forget Brahms’ meticulousness in packing and unpacking harmonies and structures (as he always does).
My love for Brahms is as intense as anyone’s love for Brahms. The love song in the slow movement of the sonata resonates with the poetry at the front, which is immediately followed by a rhapsodic-like scherzo with all the Brahms energy, humor, and irony.
Handel variations is a collection of trademarks for a mortal being. Before it culminates in a fuga, it has been circling around scenes including a death-march.
Dina Ugorskaja — Anatol’s daughter — is an equally accomplished pianist whose music has been my top favorites. She has long passed away before her dad. When I first heard her, she was already gone. Fortunately, her music is with us, immortal.
I would rate her Chopin 24 preludes as equally brilliant as Maria Joâo Pires.
My favorite of J. S. Bach WTC.
It was as if by becoming a musician and Music Master (s)he had chosen music as one of the ways toward (hu)man's highest goal, inner freedom, purity, perfection, […] — so that (s)he was now only a symbol, or rather a manifestation, a personification of music.
- Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse
I spent 44 days listening to this album back and forth.
Rest in peace! If the world doesn’t remember you, it will surely remember your music.