Nikolai Medtner ‒ 2 Skazki, Op. 20

Nikolai Karlovich Medtner (1880 - 1951), 2 Tales, Op.8 (1909)
Performed by Geoffrey Tozer (2004)
00:00 - No. 1 Allegro con espressione
03:10 - No. 2 Pesante Minaccioso
When one considers the life of Nikolai Karlovich Medtner it is impossible not to be amazed by his strange, tragic and yet marvellous destiny. He was recognized in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century as one of the most important composers and was, with Scriabin and Rachmaninov, an extremely influential, almost ‘cult’ figure for a whole generation of the Russian intellectual élite. He was also a great pianist and an outstanding musical thinker. His personality was completely divorced from everyday life, but the depth and power of his intellect, entirely absorbed in music, philosophy and the history of culture, were deeply respected by such contemporaries as Nikisch, Rachmaninov, Furtwängler, Koussevitsky, Glazunov and Prokofiev. There is thus something of a paradox in the fact that for the last thirty years of his life, when he lived in the West, he remained practically unknown to the general public and spent most of his life in abject poverty.
His music is the subject of a similar paradox. More than half a century of composing saw his style change remarkably little; critical reaction, however, differed wildly. Some thought of him as an innovator where others considered him an arch-conservative. Some felt he was the heir to the great Germanic tradition, while others spoke of his Russian soul and his ability to capture in his music the atmosphere of Russia at the turn of the century. It would seem, then, that neither the composer’s personality nor his musical style can be analysed within the limits of a single tradition, be this even the rich tradition of a Russia or Germany. This ambivalence stems from Medtner’s own origins. Since Peter the Great had, in the words of Pushkin, ‘opened a window into Europe’, thousands of foreigners had been living in Russia. This strange community, which juxtaposed European roots with the changing environment of Russia, formed a unique part of Russian life and produced many remarkable figures-men of art, science and politics.
The Skazki (‘Märchen’ in German; ‘Contes’ in French; the incorrect ‘Fairy Tales’ in English) were the most personal of Medtner’s idioms and contain his most immediately appealing music: they are miniature tone poems full of atmosphere and colour and are arguably the most neglected ‘great’ piano music in the repertoire.