Masters of the Keyboard for a World Premiere

All the solemn grandeur and dizzying sensation of Arnold Böcklin’s painting, \*The Isle of the Dead\*, are captured in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s thoroughly Wagnerian score. To transcribe it for the organ, the young and highly talented conductor, organist, and harpsichordist Hansjörg Albrecht, who also transcribed Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30.

To do justice to this score, considered one of the most difficult in the repertoire, it takes all the virtuosity of Russian pianist Dmitry Masleev, winner of the highly prestigious Tchaikovsky International Competition in 2015. This is a world premiere: it is the first time this notoriously difficult work has been the subject of such a transcription.

Dmitry Masleev’s virtuosity and expressiveness also shine in his performances of solo piano pieces, again by Rachmaninoff, notably two of the seventeen Etudes-Tableaux, a concept invented by the Russian composer.