Pianist Julius Asal - works by Domenico Scarlatti and Aleksandr Skriabin - Music box, June 3rd, 2024

An album released by Deutsche Grammophon on May 3rd - Scarlatti and Skriabin with 27-year-old German pianist Julius Asal.

Julius Asal is currently part of the BBC New Generation Artist programme, for the period 2024-2026; he published his first disc in 2022, and in October 2023, Deutsche Grammophon announced that they had co-opted him through the musicians he collaborates with, the vice president of the company, specialising in new repertoires, noting that he had discovered Asal on Instagram and thought he was a serious, thoughtful artist. A happy case, I would say.

Julius Asal is, indeed, an artist who is distinguished by the way he plays the piano and it seems important to me that a great record label appreciated this in the first place, not some marketing tool or some external aspect of singing that would highlight the musician.

Julius Asal is a thinker, in the way he builds his repertoire, as he did for his first record, which surprises not necessarily through the chosen works, but by joining them and flowing in order. Of course, there have also been recorded preludes of Skriabin, and sonatas of Scarlatti, but I have never heard them put together in a flow that suggests the dream. I did not read the Deutsche Grammophon press release until after I listened to the album and made my own impression, but it really is, as Julius Asal says: "I wanted the entire album to be a deep psychological experience, growing in unexpected directions and keeping the listener trapped at every step."

We start from almost nothing - Quasi niente, selected fragment from Funeral, the last part of Sonata no. 1 by Skriabin and we finally get there, as in a circle, going through 6 sonatas by Scarlatti and 7 preludes and studies by Aleksandr Skriabin, together with Sonata no. 1 of the same Russian composer. But also two supply transitions signed by Julius Asal.

200 years separate Scarlatti and Skriabin - these two unconventional composers, each for their own time - and in Asal's conception, it seems to us that they are, in a way, contemporary. And Asal's interpretation is indeed a personal one, perfectly adapted to what he proposes: to transport the listener to another world.

I propose this album in its entirety, exactly as it was conceived by the author. An hour and a quarter of music - talking about the power of music, of good music, I would point out, to take us away. For those who choose this.