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Live from Wigmore Hall: Alexander Gadjiev plays Schumann and Prokofiev.

Radio 3 New Generation Artist, Alexander Gadjiev tackles two masterpieces of the piano repertoire, written a hundred years apart but both notable for their towering technical and musical challenges. Schumann's Fantasie was dedicated to Franz Liszt and began life as a memorial work for Beethoven, whilst the second of Prokofiev's so-called 'War Sonatas' probably reveals Prokofiev's innermost feelings amid the chaos of war and the Stalinist purges; something hinted at in his quotation of a song by Schumann: "I can sometimes sing as if I were glad, yet secretly tears well and so free my heart."

Presented by Martin Handley

R. Schumann: Fantasie in C Op. 17
Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 7 in B flat Op. 83

Already the winner of the Hamamatsu, Monte Carlo and Sydney Piano Competitions, and more recently joint second prizewinner at the 2021 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, the Italian-Slovenian pianist (of Russian descent) also received the Krystian Zimerman Prize on the latter occasion for the best performance of a sonata.