Like his near-contemporary Rachmaninov, who called him ‘the greatest composer of our time’, Nikolay Medtner was a composer, pianist and an exile from his native Russia. His portfolio of works includes a remarkable series of pieces for his own instrument, including fourteen sonatas and some hugely evocative, deeply poetic miniatures. Medtner’s gift for melody is immediately discerned in the early Sonatina in G minor. The Sonata No. 1, Op. 5, his first large-scale work, enshrines autobiographical elements and is both intense and spiritually charged. Poetry and nostalgia flood the beautiful Sonata-Reminiscenza in A minor. This is the first volume of a complete cycle of the Medtner Piano Sonatas.
