Alexander Melnikov II

With his unusually large hands, Sergei Rachmaninoff was able to master the most difficult fingering on the grand piano, and his own works include countless examples. Of course, when he was writing, the composer and legendary virtuoso had a player of his own technical abilities in mind – for example in the highly challenging “Études-Tableaux” opus 39 from 1916, which were only published posthumously in 1948. In these milestones of piano music, in which the “Dies irae” motif of the sequence of the dead resonates sometimes more and sometimes less obviously, Rachmaninoff achieved a perfect combination of technically brilliant playing and poetic tone painting. For Alexander Melnikov, who is internationally famous for his profound style of interpretation, these nine works are “among the strongest pieces that Rachmaninoff ever wrote.” No wonder that this sensitive pianist, who possesses an impressive palette of tone colours, has programmed these still neglected pieces. He will also play the monumental and no less complex “Variations on a theme of Chopin” that Rachmaninoff composed in homage to his colleague and predecessor, in which early and late Romanticism flow effortlessly into each other, along with the dance-like “Variations on a theme of Corelli” that are based on the Baroque composer’s famous “Folia”.