Julius Asal’s debut album for DG goes out on a limb. Initially, his coupling of Scriabin and Scarlatti seems eccentric, yet the combination of composers, two centuries apart and radically different, amounts to more than mere novelty. Asal’s fascinating accompanying essay, perhaps understandably more hesitant than assertive, tells of how the impact of Scriabin’s early F minor Sonata, Op 6 – a gargantuan work both in length and ambition – has haunted him since childhood. It is easy to imagine the impact of its storming rhetoric, the sombre tread of the funeral march with its numbing Quasi niente (‘almost nothing’) central episode, on a young and impressionable mind.

Asal has always felt drawn to the darker side of music. For him three of Scarlatti’s most inward-looking sonatas are of a contained sadness that took him, in his dreamlike state, to Scriabin; somehow the link was made. His ‘prologue’ and ‘epilogue’ take the form of Scriabin’s Quasi niente, the essence for all that follows. To say that Scarlatti and Scriabin ‘connect seamlessly’ may be far-fetched but the references to ‘yearning emotion’ and ‘expressive austerity’ in both composers, however differently communicated, make you ask, like the pianist, whether you wake or dream. Yet more audaciously, but never less than sincerely, Asal’s own Transitions provide their own personal commentary and shed further light on a patchwork of cross-references extending an imagined state that becomes a reality.

None of this would be of much consequence if Asal’s playing was less than warmly committed. His performances alternate strength and delicacy, from Scarlatti’s range and audacity to Scriabin’s manic depression.

Asal Two Transitions D Scarlatti Keyboard Sonatas – in C minor, Kk56; in C minor, Kk58; in B minor, Kk87; in F minor, Kk238; in F minor, Kk466; in B flat, Kk544 Scriabin Étude in B flat minor, Op 8 No 11. Piano Sonata No 1 in F minor, Op 6. Preludes: Op 11 – No 6 in B minor; No 14 in E flat minor; No 20 in C minor; No 21 in B flat; Op 16 – No 1 in B; No 4 in E flat minor

Julius Asal pf

DG 486 5283

This review originally appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of International Piano. Never miss an issue – subscribe today