In an age when we can access so much music through streaming platforms and the cloud it is difficult to imagine how a totalitarian regime could bury artists so effectively that it takes a century for their legacy to re-emerge. 

Peter Jablonski

Alexey Stanchinsky’s (1888-1914) short and tragic life ended three years before the Russian Revolution but only four of his works were published while he was alive. Plagued by mental health illness and denied access to his lover and their son, he destroyed (or tried to) many of his early pieces. Some were reconstructed by friends from memory. Handwritten copies were circulated and Prokofiev wrote an admiring review of the first four of the Twelve Sketches. The complete edition of his piano music only appeared in Russia in 1990. His champion Nikolay Zhilyaev was murdered by the Stalinist regime.

This album by Swedish pianist Peter Jablonski should help to reinstate this forgotten genius, friend of Scriabin and influencer of Shostakovich among others. What is immediately apparent from the opening track, the Sonata in E Flat, written when he was 18, is his mastery...