CCMusic.com

My selection of works by Rameau, Rachmaninoff and Bach for this album weaves a tapestry of nostalgia for a Golden Age - an epoch of eternal beauty and purity in which time itself has a completely different meaning. I have placed the works non-chronologically and in a tripartite form in order to present not only a better perception of time's effects on the artist, performer and listener but also it's presence in essence thanks to the composer's art: Rameau's Suite in G from his Nouvelles Suites de pièces de clavecin functions as a type of prelude, Rachmaninoff's Variations on a theme of Corelli as the central element, and Bach's French Suite in B minor as a postlude. The time frames of the two Baroque cycles that open and close the album are extremely flexible; music of this period never seems to hurry - it is as if the com-poser is saying "Take your time - you have plenty of it - and breathe as freely as you want". Rachmaninoff, however, pushes us out of our comfort zone, squeezing time like a spring or stopping it completely while reflecting upon the cruelty of the outside world and the harm that it does to harmony and beauty. I decided not to end this recording with the Variations on a theme of Corelli, given the work's powerful emotional charge; the suite by Bach that concludes the album returns us to a state of harmony and gives us hope that there is time enough. Konstantin Emelyanov