The progression through Scriabin’s complete piano works is a unique musical experience which starts with the bittersweet Chopinesque romanticism of his early works to the idiosyncratic and intuitive atonality of the later works. Scriabin’s music embraces the past and the future, formality and freedom. Its large range of expression – anger, fear, heroism, darkness, mystery, evil, light, fire, flight, intoxication, languor, love, sex, ecstasy – is the very connective tissue of his life and thought. His remarkable harmonic scheme is like a burgeoning new language and his works are experiences of an inexhaustible range of colour, from the most delicate nuance to rich multi-voiced textures, and of (his favourite word) “sensations.” It is music that floats in its own rarefied ozone.

Michael Ponti’s artistry is particularly suited to this repertoire. Well known for his pioneering and revelatory traversal of the Romantic Piano Concerto genre, Ponti’s passionate, eloquent, technically impressive and spontaneously expressive pianism takes the listener through a fascinating and rewarding journey.