Part 2. Here, John Bell Young examines Scriabin's handwritten manuscript of the Fifth Sonata, Op. 53 at the Scriabin Museum in Moscow, which was Scriabin's last home. He is also shown with Scriabin's daughter, Marina Scriabine, at Cap d'Ailes, France, 1983. John Bell Young's recording of the music of Scriabin, including this performaance of the Fifth Sonata, is available on his CD "Prisms", on the Americus Records label. To order, please visit http://www.americuscd.com/
"I was most impressed by John Bell Young's performance of Scriabin's 5th Sonata. He demonstrated great power, imagination and a rhythm full of life, all the elements indispensable for an interpreter of my father's music."
-Marina Scriabine, Paris 1983
"Let me say at once that I find your playing extremely accomplished and sensitive ... superb playing... Altogether, I think it is a wonderful achievement that you have recorded these works."
-Sir Charles Mackerras
"I still find this disc [Prisms] the most satisfying and artistic piano recital ever recorded."
Hugh Downs, ABC-News "20/20"
"Young's performances of Scriabin are that rare combination of spontaneity and discipline, intelligence and Dionysian abandon."
-Faubion Bowers, author of "Scriabin: A Biography of the Russian Composer"
"John Bell Young is an American pianist who has established himself as a Scriabinist of international repute. His recital disc features striking readings of sonatas 5 and 7, plus a number of shorter works (Americus 1013). His reading of 7 is memorable; he plays it significantly more slowly than most, and it works; he obtains a ritual atmosphere entirely in keeping with the sonata's "White Mass" appellation. Sonata 5 is paced beautifully, and Young makes more of its contrasts than do many pianists; the slow passages are particularly ruminative. Throughout this disc you hear a musician who has reflected deeply on this music and has strong and original ideas about how it should be performed. Young's disc also contains some non-Scriabin works, including his own lovely transcription of Mahler's Adagietto from Symphony 5, played with melting pathos."
- David McIntire. "Classical Music: Third Ear -- The Essential Listening Companion" (Backbeat Books)
"The valiant John Bell Young cultivates a suaveness of pedaling...He has at his command a touch vibrantly sensual, even seductive."
"A performer in the grand old Russian romantic tradition, ...{Young] is also a pianist of considerable substance, ...he created an almost orchestral effect in Liszt's dazzling Ballade in B minor. His Scriabin selection included a remarkable performance of the Nocturne for the Left Hand in which he created a surprising level of volume and fluency with half the usual allotment of fingers. Then there was a spellbinding exotic Poeme, Op. 32 no. 1."
-John Fleming, The St. Petersburg Times
-Pascal Brissaud, Le Monde de la Musique
"John Bell Young's new CD, Prisms, treats its listeners to ten pieces by the idiosyncratic Scriabin, as well as several new works. The Two Poemes Op. 32 and the Sonata # 5 especially showcase Scriabin and Young at their best. The close miked Steinway captures the music with exciting clarity. Most riveting ...is Young's performance of his Mahler transcription. To keep this ravishingly beautiful work cooking with the same intensity and drive as the original orchestration is a tribute to a most insightful pianist. This CD has truly lived up to its name, offering a recital filled with colorful works performed with great keyboard savvy."
Jim Edwards, Clavier
February 2000
"John Bell Young is a tough critic. Writing for Opera News and American Record Guide, he is quick to deflate performers, even very skilled ones, who simply go through the motions, who fail to search within themselves for a personal understanding of the music. The classical music world is full of such indifferent musicians and their cynical promoters, he often says, and to hell with the lot of them. But Young is a performer himself, a competition-winning pianist with a number of recordings to his credit and this new one, Prisms, just released. So how will he fare when we apply his own lofty standards to his work? Just fine, as it turns out. Young's playing here is thoughtful and sensitive, especially in the works of his favorite composer and musical inspiration, Alexander Scriabin....Another treat comes with Young's own transcription of the haunting Adagietto from Mahler's Symphony No. 5, a gorgeous, sumptuous melody Mahler supposedly wrote with future wife Alma Schindler in mind...to Young's credit he makes the experience work with the piano. Grade: A"
--David Ballingrud, The St. Petersburg Times
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JOHN BELL YOUNG plays SCRIABIN SONATA NO. 5 OP. 53by guirlandes33,563 views
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