Skazki

Nikolai Medtner's music fascinates and surprises, in the midst of what also seems to be well known. You may imagine that you have heard the melodies before, in childhood or in a dream. But, even if you haven't, it is as if you have been waiting for this music to return. In some mysterious way, it evokes the memory of the unheard. He named many of his piano pieces SKAZKA - tale. Some of them carry subtitles, but it is uncertain whether the composer had specific narratives in mind, as the name would suggest. The influential Soviet musicologists Boris Asafyev may have been right when he claimed that "these are not descriptive tales or tales that illustrate an event. These are tales of personal experiences - of conflicts in the inner life of man". In this recording, Gunnar Sama plays five of Medtner's albums, composed over the course of some 30 years.