“As a young piano student, a Fairy Tale by a certain Nikolai Medtner captivated me. I yearned to discover more, but in those days his scores were largely out-of-print, recordings even rarer. Over the years, the search for this elusive composer has taken me to archives and libraries in several countries...even a Maharaja's palace in India! Now, I am proud to have joined the small but devoted band of Medtnerians who take delight in presenting this wonderful and unjustly neglected music to audiences worldwide.”

– Paul Stewart

Like his near-contemporary Rachmaninov, who called him 'the greatest composer of our time', Nikolay Medtner was a composer, pianist and an exile from his native Russia. His portfolio of works includes a remarkable series of pieces for his own instrument, including fourteen sonatas and some hugely evocative, deeply poetic miniatures.

Medtner's gift for melody is immediately discerned in the early Sonatina in G minor. The Sonata No. 1, Op. 5, his first large-scale work, enshrines autobiographical elements and is both intense and spiritually charged. Poetry and nostalgia flood the beautiful Sonata-Reminiscenza in A minor. This is the first volume of a complete cycle of the Medtner Piano Sonatas.

Sonatina in G minor (1898) (07:29)
1  Allegretto, ma non troppo (02:42)
2  Scherzo: Allegro (04:47)

Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 5 * (35:26)
3  Allegro (13:50)
4  Intermezzo: Allegro. Moderato-Andante (03:41)
5  Largo divito. Moderato-Andante (08:43)
6  Finale: Allegro risoluto (09:12)

Sonata-Reminiscenza in A Minor, Op. 38, No. 1 (15:27)
7  Allegretto tranquillo (Andantino con moto)

TOTAL TIME: 58:22

* The original, first version of the Sonata No. 1 has been used, and this is World Premiere Recording of the first version.

Canadian pianist Paul Stewart launched his career in 1981 with a stunning performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Toronto Symphony. Since then he has appeared in concert throughout Canada, the United States (including Carnegie Hall, New York and the Kennedy Center, Washington), Mexico, South America, the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia. He is a frequent guest-soloist with major orchestras in Canada and abroad, and has collaborated with such artists as James Ehnes, Maureen Forrester, Ben Heppner, Jessye Norman, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pinchas Zukerman, and the Leipzig, Prague and Moscow String Quartets. His British début in London's Wigmore Hall was broadcast by the BBC, and a performance of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra was heard throughout Russia and subsequently released on a bestselling CD. Other recordings include works by Beethoven, Britten, Honegger, Liszt, Prokofiev, Ravel, Schubert and Strauss; for Grand Piano he is currently recording the complete piano sonatas of Nikolay Medtner, a composer he has championed and performed on four continents. Paul Stewart is a Professor of Piano at the Université de Montréal.

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"Spectacular....a performance atmospheric but pristinely articulated,
radiating warmth and intelligence...breadth and decisiveness wed to a heightened poetic sensibility." – American Record Guide