Sergei Bortkiewicz | Prelude, Op.6/1

Bortkiewicz (Bortkievicz) is a severly underrated composer, in my opinion. His pianistic output is absolutely fantastic. His piece Diana has well over 100k views on the channel. People are nowadays interested in the output of this rather forgotten romantic composer. A very gloomy Prelude, which sounds more like a Nocturne in spirit, and reminds of early Rachmaninov pieces (Elegy, same "maximally distant" tonality etc). Although we have an ABA structure, the middle section is not in the major key, we instead have a development section that leads to a climax, which can probably be played with accelerando, as I did naturally. The atmosphere is pretty hopeless and dark. The bright horizon appears at the end though. The 3 note motif c g b flat, reminds me of a similar motif that Chopin used (I think) at the end of the second movement of the first PC. It can be played in a exclamatory way, as you hear here. (What makes me believe to do so, is that it is repeated rather prominently at the end there). Bortkiewicz (1877-1952) was a Romantic composer. He received his musical training from Anatoly Lyadov and Karl von Arek at the Imperial Conservatory of Music in Saint Petersburg. In 1900 he left Saint Petersburg and traveled to Leipzig, where he became a student of Alfred Reisenauer and Salomon Jadassohn, both pupils of Franz Liszt. In July 1902, Bortkiewicz completed his studies at the Leipzig Conservatory and was awarded the Schumann Prize on graduation. On his return to the...