Debut – Sasha Stychkina

Greek-Russian pianist Sasha Stychkina, born in December 2003 in Moscow into a family of musicians and filmmakers, is the youngest finalist and winner in the history of the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition in Paris in November 2019. Today she presents her first recital, recorded at the Teldex studio in Berlin under the artistic direction of her teacher, the charismatic and renowned pianist Kirill Gerstein. A decidedly varied programme—Weber, Bartók, Ravel, Chopin, Liszt—it is by turns virtuosic, dance-like and spiritual. Sasha Stychkina also introduces us to a little-known composer, Alexei Vladimirovich Stanchinsky (1888-1914), a mystical figure, considered mad – he spent a year in a psychiatric hospital – who drowned at the age of twenty-six. A student of Taneyev, encouraged by Scriabin, and introduced to Tolstoy, the composer nevertheless had a bright future ahead of him. The Five Preludes (1907-1912, published posthumously in 1928), chosen by Sasha Stychkina, are particularly evocative and visionary.