Chopin, Scriabin & Yashiro: 72 Preludes

For decades nobody imagined that Chopin intended his Preludes, all 24 of them, to be played complete. A prelude, after all, must be a prelude to something else, not a prelude to a prelude. It wasn’t until the composer and pianist Ferruccio Busoni began performing the work as a whole the early 1900s, that the practice was adopted by others and soon became commonplace. Mao Fujita now shines fresh light on Chopin’s towering repertoire landmark by recording it in company with two contrasting yet complementary books of piano preludes, the two dozen dazzling miniatures by Scriabin and an equally remarkable set by Akio Yashiro. The Japanese pianist’s artistic enterprise mirrors the radical nature of Chopin’s original idea. Above all, it celebrates the genre’s seemingly infinite variety of styles, from pieces based on simple melodies or chord progressions to substantial works that make devilish demands on a player’s technique and artistry. “My last album was of Mozart’s complete piano sonatas, so this one’s very different,” Fujita tells Apple Music Classical. “I’m always challenging myself and want to make new discoveries. So each of these preludes by Chopin, Scriabin and Yashiro, often lasting one or two minutes, is very different to a Mozart sonata. I spent maybe three years building my Mozart interpretations, and then had to turn my mind to expressing these preludes. That was the new challenge for me.” Chopin composed his Preludes in 1839, while Scriabin was in his late teens when he began his set half a century later. Yashiro was just 15 when he wrote his Preludes in 1945, an astonishing achievement given his age and the fact that Tokyo, his home city, was still reeling from the deadliest air raid of the Second World War. Yashiro’s Preludes, known to a few pianists from fading photocopies of his manuscript score, remained unpublished until 2022. “I was so curious to see them and immediately bought the first edition,” says Fujita. “So Yashiro was already in my mind when I began discussing my next recording.” The idea of combining 72 preludes by three different composers, one of them little known outside Japan, surely sounded like a pianist’s pipedream. But Fujita argued a strong case for his project, sealing the deal with an appetising culinary metaphor. “The Chopin is like fish, and the Scriabin is like rice,” he explains. “It’s a very typical meal, you see. But if you put them together with Yashiro, then you have wasabi. It’s the accent of this album.” The backstory to Yashiro’s Preludes began with the government-backed introduction of Western classical music to Japan in the early 1900s. He fell in love with the core repertoire during childhood and deepened his knowledge by listening to the NHK Symphony Orchestra’s wartime radio broadcasts. Fujita met the composer’s widow and learned from her about his love for Chopin. “She’s a very sweet person and told me so much about him,” he recalls. After completing his studies with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire in the mid-1950s, Yashiro wrote only five or six substantial works, concertos for cello and piano and a symphony among them; he died following a cardiac arrest in 1976. “Yashiro would spend a lot of time composing one piece, maybe taking a week to write just one phrase, then a week to write the next. But the Preludes came to him much more freely. He was hugely influenced by Chopin. You hear echoes of Chopin’s harmony in his Prelude No. 23, for instance. And there’s Chopin’s arpeggio style in Prelude No. 9. But he also puts many Japanese essences into these pieces, especially the pentatonic scale.” Fujita draws out the singing line from all three sets of preludes, shaping their melodies and bass lines while taking great care of the music’s inner parts. “There are so many beautiful counterpoints, especially in Chopin and Scriabin, which are sometimes more important than the main voices,” he comments. “Each piece has its own character, colours and pianism. So I learned that Scriabin is totally different from Chopin, and they are both different from Yashiro. I love this process of discovery.” Inside the Album Booklet Andrew Mellor’s liner notes, interspersed with portrait photos of Mao Fujita, provide additional insight into the reasoning behind this extraordinary programme, as well as a guide to each of the three sets of preludes by Chopin, Scriabin and Yashiro. Album booklets are available in the latest version of Apple Music Classical, which you can download and enjoy as part of your Apple Music subscription. To access booklets, tap on the book icon at the top of your screen.