Pianist Nicolas Stavy, who has already made recordings

devoted to works by Boris Tishchenko (BIS-2189) and

Dmitri Shostakovich (BIS-2550), now presents the first

instalment of a complete survey of Alfred Schnittke's

compositions for solo piano. This recording presents

works from various periods of the Russian-German

composer's career - from the 1950s, which the

composer described as the 'years of obscurity', to the

1990s, a time shaped both by world fame and serious

illness. While Schnittke wrote relatively little music for

the piano, each work reflects - or sometimes anticipates

- the phases of the composer's creative development.

The Five Preludes and Fugue and the Prelude and Fugue

belong to Schnittke's first creative phase, when he was

still under the influence of Shostakovich. The Little Piano

Pieces, composed for the composer's six-year-old son,

are an example of his 'polystylism', juxtaposing and

combining music of various styles from the past and

present. The Sonata No. 2 and the Five Aphorisms, both

from 1990, return to a more ascetic and abstract

language, with a bleaker tone, no doubt echoing his

serious health problems.