Ukrainian-born pianist Vladyslav Ustiuhov is out with a smoking new single, "Pathetique Etude Op. 8 No. 12," blazing both fire and fragility into one of Alexander Scriabin's most cherished creations. More than a display of virtuosity, this recording comes across as a profoundly personal statement, an intimate voyage through Ustiuhov's life as both a musician and an immigrant artist.
The Etude, for Ustiuhov, is a musical tempest mimicking the struggles of human life rather than just a test of a pianist's endurance. His initial connection to the work came while he was a master's student at the Boston Conservatory, where he studied with Prof. Max Levinson. What at first seemed to be a fearful onslaught of colourful rage and relentless octaves began over time to serve as a palette for narrative storytelling. Ustiuhov conjures up Scriabin's universe of unmediated urgency. The left hand bears unyielding momentum, and the right hand contributes to raining melodies that float between pain and victory. If it's liable to blur into chaos, it instead becomes conversation precise and passionate, structural and storm-tossed. As he came of age in Ukraine, Ustiuhov was drawn to music that was suffused with drama and inward struggle, and with a complexity that reflected the chaos he encountered all around. This kinship is evident in his account of Scriabin's Op. 8, No. 12, a song composed in 1894 on the threshold of the composer's artistic awakening. The Etude's duality, its ferocious power and lyrical heart, seems almost autobiographical in Ustyugov's hands, mirroring his journey through cultural and artistic terrain after he moved to the United States.
The recording itself was an exercise in endurance and deftness of touch. The weight of the opening chords, a feather-light middle section, and the final storm-driven outburst were among the things we focused on. The result is a performance never winking away the Etude's dual nature, the fierceness strung next to fragility.