NIKOLAY ANDREYEVICH ROSLAVETS
(1881–1944)

COMPLETE WORKS FOR SOLO PIANO

OLGA ANDRYUSHCHENKO

“Nikolay Roslavets was a highly regarded composer, but by the Russian Avant Garde period of the 1920s (i.e. Alexander Mosolov, Arthur Lourié, Vladimir Deshevov, Gavriil Popov, early Dmitri Shostakovich, etc.), his music had more or less disappeared, perhaps due in part to the fact that almost everything in his music relates to the political issues of his time. However, back then, even a vague reference to a historical event, such as the cataclysmic October Revolution in 1917, was more than sufficient to evoke a powerful emotional backlash.

To my ear, what makes his works extraordinary is the exceptionally strong power of the melodic line. After attempting to familiarize myself with Russian poetry, literature, and history, I am of the opinion that his music was influenced by not only all of these cultural aspects, but also, on an even grander scale, by an array of simultaneous and interconnected socio-political events of his day.”

– Olga Andryushchenko

About this Recording

Stravinsky described Nikolay Roslavets as “the most interesting Russian composer of the 20th century,” but after decades of suppression under the Soviet regime his significance is still being assessed even today with newly discovered and reconstructed works included in this recording. Scriabin’s influence can be heard in earlier works, and a constant search for fresh sound constellations resulted in Roslavets’ invention of influential new compositional techniques, treating the piano with a passionate power and complex sovereignty that Olga Andryushchenko describes as like “fire and ice!”

OLGA ANDRYUSHCHENKO

Olga Andryushchenko was educated at the Central Special Music School, and the Faculty of Historical and Modern Performing Arts of the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory under Alexei Lubimov. She has won a number of important prizes and awards, including the “Franz Schubert and the Music of Modernity” Piano Competition (Austria, 2000), the Premium Piano Seiler Competition (Germany, 2001), the Premio Vanna Spadafor International Piano Competition (Italy, 2004), the Bach Competition (Leipzig, 2006), the Musica Antiqua International Fortepiano Competition (Belgium, 2007), the A. Scriabine International Piano Competition (Paris, 2008), the N. Rubinstein International Piano Competition (Paris, 2008), and the Fortepiano Competition (Schloss Kremsegg, 2011). She has given a number of piano recitals and played with orchestras in Europe, North America and Asia. She has recorded extensively for radio and now lives in Germany.