Light: Scriabin, Stockhausen (2016)

Vanessa Benelli Mosell studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen in his old age. Whether this makes her an authoritative interpreter of the Klavierstücke, specifically the one here extracted from the giant Licht (Light) opera cycle, may be debated. But she certainly gets the energy in this work, one of Stockhausen's most accessible, and she enters enthusiastically into its jazz accents and exotic vocal effects. The bulk of the program here, however, is devoted not to Stockhausen but to Alexander Scriabin. The "light" theme is ... Read More

Vanessa Benelli Mosell studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen in his old age. Whether this makes her an authoritative interpreter of the Klavierstücke, specifically the one here extracted from the giant Licht (Light) opera cycle, may be debated. But she certainly gets the energy in this work, one of Stockhausen's most accessible, and she enters enthusiastically into its jazz accents and exotic vocal effects. The bulk of the program here, however, is devoted not to Stockhausen but to Alexander Scriabin. The "light" theme is intended to apply to both composers, but the early works of Scriabin performed here, the 24 Preludes for piano, Op. 11, and the even earlier 3 Pieces, Op. 2 and Etude, Op. 8, No. 12, carry little hint of the synaesthetic experiments to come later in Scriabin's career. Mosell seems to admit as much in the interview-style booklet, where she turns first to the totalizing tendencies of these composers. Nevertheless, the program holds together reasonably well on its own (and it's noteworthy... Read Less