Search - Alexander Scriabin, Chitose Okashiro :: Scriabin Etudes Complete

Look No Further For A Scriabin Etude CD!

Paul Rossi | Walla Walla, WA | 01/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As I often do, I searched Amazon for a recording of the Scriabin Etudes. I wanted to find the best available interpretations and recording possible. I knew about the Piers Lane and Alexander Paley recordings of this work, but this Chitose Okashiro CD proved a remarkable surprise! After listening to clips of both Lane and Okashiro playing the etudes, I made up my mind to purchase this CD. Wow!



Okashiro is an extremely competent virtuoso, yet she uses her pianistic skills to serve Scriabin's music. As the outstanding liner notes point out, Okashiro employs her extensive ear-training and aural abilities to play with extreme sensitivity and musicality.



Each study presents the player with technical and musical hurdles. Okashiro not only clears each hurdle with ease. She makes music out of each etude.



The Opus 8 etudes owe a debt to Frederic Chopin. Many of the same figurations and gestures are present, yet Scriabin's unique rhythmic, melodic and harmonic traits are audible. In sensitive sections, Okashiro plays with great beauty and sensitivity. She shapes each phrase beautifully and gives it forward direction. Okashiro's left-hand playing is strong and foundational, important for playing the unusual tremolos Scriabin uses. Her right-hand playing is quick, dexterous, and extremely accurate. Okashiro will wow you with her technique and accuracy!



My personal favorite on the CD is Opus 8, No. 10., in D-flat Major. It sounds like a cross between Balakirev's "Islamey" and a Chopin mazurka. It employs flurries of thirds and a meter in five. The D-flat Major etude is a whirlwind piece with some bewitching harmonies! It is perhaps the most self-consciously virtuosic of all the Scriabin etudes, and Okashiro slam-dunks it.



Okashiro uses a different approach for the latter etudes. Scriabin obviously used material from his Fourth Sonata in several of the etudes, and Okashiro's playing matches the fine Roberto Szidon recording of the Fourth Sonata. It is bleak, languid, hazy, misty and other-worldly.



Another impressive effort is Opus 65, No. 1. This etude shares the musical language of the dreaded Sixth Sonata. It has wicked runs of a major ninth (Stretch your thumb and little finger as far as you can on the piano, and try to play fast runs!). Okashiro plays with jaw-dropping virtuosity, and she keeps the etude appropriately frenetic.



If you want to own a great set of interpretations of the Scriabin Etudes with superb sound, purchase this one by Chitose Okashiro. Do not be scared off by her obscure-sounding Japanese name. Okashiro plays Scriabin as well as anybody I have heard (I have listened to the complete Scriabin sonata cycles by Szidon and Ashkenazy, including clips from Sofronitsky, Ogdon, Hamelin, and Laredo). Go for it!!"

Supreme colorist

Paul Rossi | 08/02/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is an exceptional CD. Okashiro is a pianist of amazing abilities. While listening to her performance of these etudes, I was immediately struck by her considerable technical command and her acute musical sensitivities. Her stylistic freedom, enviable control of inner voices, and incredibly seductive tone colors have engaged me into an almost indescribable, mystical experience. The performance of each etude is so well thought out and executed that I can well understand why she is being compared to the great Russian Scriabin interpreters. In fact, my first reaction was that Okashiro must have known Scriabin. I feel this is an important CD for every pianist to own."

An excelent "unknowed" pianist

R. Machado | Sao Paulo, SP Brazil | 09/04/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Okashiro's performance of the Scriabin's studies is fabulous. I've ever heard some of this studies with Horowitz, but I've never seen ALL of then. This album is very good because this is complete. Of course, Okashiro is very good! I used to hear Horowitz and I like her (Okashiro) a lot. A comparission is not the case, of course, but was an excelent buy. The sound's quality is powerfull and professional too. Very good, one of my favorites."