Anya Alexeyev is the daughter of concert virtuoso Dmitri Alexeev; she has chosen the alternate spelling of her surname in order to avoid the inevitable comparisons with her father. She has likewise chosen quite a different career trajectory from her father; although both studied under Russian pedagogue
Dmitri Bashkirov at the Moscow Conservatory, Alexeev père rather famously made the rounds of major piano competitions, winning several of them. The honors accorded to
Alexeyev were collected in her student years, mostly in England, but from that time she has managed to avoid the competition circuit. Nevertheless, this hasn't prevented
Alexeyev from pursuing an international recital career beginning in the early 2000s, and despite the uniformly warm reception given her playing in concert settings, her artistry heretofore has proven elusive to recordings. Marquis Classics' Anya Alexeyev: The Russian Music Box is her first commercial disc.
Marquis is a Canadian label, and
Alexeyev has settled in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, as assistant professor of piano at Wilfred Laurier University. While one might mistake this, from its title and the fact that it's
Alexeyev's debut, as being a collection of brief Russian miniatures. It is actually a survey of the "other" Russian piano music belonging to the first two decades of the twentieth century, not the school surrounding
Scriabin, but the last bloom of the nineteenth century Nationalist tradition. Mily Balakirev's B flat minor Sonata is the leadoff work, and after a sizeable selection of Liadov, including his Op. 64 Morceaux, we are treated to some
Medtner and
Prokofiev's Tales of an Old Grandmother, Op. 31. This is an intelligently conceived program that places
Prokofiev's early piano music in the context where it belongs; although he is often tagged with a generic neo-Classical designation that implies that is what his music is "about," clearly the spirit of
Prokofiev is a lot closer to composers like Liadov than it is to
Stravinsky, or for that matter
Scriabin. The inclusion of larger pieces, such as the Balakirev Sonata, helps upgrade the status of the smaller Russian works here, which can seem a bit too precious if many of them are presented together at one time, as is more commonly done.
The recording, made at Maureen Forrester Recital Hall at Wilfred Laurier University, is very dry and a little quiet. While one could have hoped for a bit more atmosphere in the recording,
Alexeyev's playing is excellent, and it's great to have her aboard as an artist who is among those actively recording; with any luck, there will be more.