Album
Jan Schulmeister
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition - Scriabin: Five Preludes, Op. 16 - Rachmaninoff: Six moments musicaux, Op. 16
Catalogue Number: SU 4365-2
Published: 22nd August 2025
First release: SUPRAPHON 2025
Genre: Chamber Music
Format: 1 CD
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839–1881) – Pictures at an Exhibition. Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915) – 5 Preludes, Op. 16, Etude in C sharp minor, Op. 2, No. 1. Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) – Six moments musicaux, Op. 16
Jan Schulmeister – piano
So far, the career of the Czech pianist Jan Schulmeister has been distinguished by victories at dozens of international competitions (including the 2019 César Franck Piano Competition in Belgium, the 2021 North International Music Competition in Sweden, and the 2022 Manhattan International Competition in the USA), to which he added Third Prize at the prestigious Cliburn Junior Competition (Dallas, USA) in 2023 at 17 years of age. For his Supraphon debut, he has chosen works of the late 19th century by Russian composers, music that is firmly grounded in the national tradition but that often seeks out and remains open to stimuli from the surrounding world. The oldest of them, Mussorgsky, was a loner without any depth of academic training, but he greatly advanced the boundaries of musical expression. In Pictures at an Exhibition, he accompanies listeners at an imaginary exhibition of paintings by his late friend, the painter and architect Viktor Hartmann. Rachmaninoff wrote his lovely cycle of piano pieces Moments musicaux under time pressure while facing a profound existential and creative crisis. His classmate Scriabin, no less brilliant a pianist, chose the path of a visionary and an experimenter as a composer, as we can hear from an early opus he wrote for piano (at age 16), the Etude in C sharp minor, Op. 2, No. 1. His later Five Preludes, Op. 16 (1895) reflect the omnipresent Impressionism of Paris at the end of the century. In this repertoire, Jan Schulmeister can demonstrate all of his qualities – virtuosic technique and depth of musical feeling.
The virtuosic Supraphon debut of Jan Schulmeister
Jan Schulmeister – piano
So far, the career of the Czech pianist Jan Schulmeister has been distinguished by victories at dozens of international competitions (including the 2019 César Franck Piano Competition in Belgium, the 2021 North International Music Competition in Sweden, and the 2022 Manhattan International Competition in the USA), to which he added Third Prize at the prestigious Cliburn Junior Competition (Dallas, USA) in 2023 at 17 years of age. For his Supraphon debut, he has chosen works of the late 19th century by Russian composers, music that is firmly grounded in the national tradition but that often seeks out and remains open to stimuli from the surrounding world. The oldest of them, Mussorgsky, was a loner without any depth of academic training, but he greatly advanced the boundaries of musical expression. In Pictures at an Exhibition, he accompanies listeners at an imaginary exhibition of paintings by his late friend, the painter and architect Viktor Hartmann. Rachmaninoff wrote his lovely cycle of piano pieces Moments musicaux under time pressure while facing a profound existential and creative crisis. His classmate Scriabin, no less brilliant a pianist, chose the path of a visionary and an experimenter as a composer, as we can hear from an early opus he wrote for piano (at age 16), the Etude in C sharp minor, Op. 2, No. 1. His later Five Preludes, Op. 16 (1895) reflect the omnipresent Impressionism of Paris at the end of the century. In this repertoire, Jan Schulmeister can demonstrate all of his qualities – virtuosic technique and depth of musical feeling.
The virtuosic Supraphon debut of Jan Schulmeister
Reviews
“Not yet 20, the Czech pianist Jan Schulmeister makes an outstanding Supraphon debut with this recital of Russian music… all three composers are united here through Schulmeister's intense musicality. It's always good to hear Pictures at an Exhibition in its original version for piano rather than an overblown orchestration, yet Schulmeister makes Mussorgsky's suite sound even more subtle than usual… There's more musical intelligence on show in Rachmaninov's Six Moments Musicaux… Many pianists would end there, but Schulmeister offers a reflective encore (Scriabin's Etude, Op. 2 No. 1) to make this feel like a real recital.”
BBC Music Magazine, October 2025
“Aged 17 or 18 when this Supraphon recording was made, he is clearly a talented, sensitive musician, who may go on to great things… By far the most successful items on the album are the early Scriabin pieces, whose delicate wistfulness is well caught here.”
Gramophone, October 2025
“Réservé dans Tuileries, le pianiste tchèque brille dans Limoges. Aussi superbement timbré que tenu, Bydlo signale un musicien subtil. Avec une splendide Grande Porte de Kiev, Jan Schulmeister sort enfin de ses gonds, négociant les sauts d'accords avec panache. Sa finesse fait merveille dans les Préludes op. 16 de Scriabine. L'envoûtant premier navigue entre terre et ciel, le suivant confirme une savante maîtrise du son, quand le quatrième distille ses murmures navrés… Avec ce premier album chez Supraphon, l'artiste de dixneuf ans signe une très belle réussite : à suivre ! ”
Diapason, October 2025
“Schulmeister understands that artifice is not part of Mussorgsky’s makeup. He plays the music straight… Schulmeister’s flexible and poetic reading of the popular C sharp minor Etude, Op 2 No 1, which concludes the album, better signifies this pianist's potential as a Scriabin interpreter… Schulmeister rides upon the concluding C major piece's massive textures and creating arpeggio waves like a seasoned surfer. An inconsistent release, all told, but I will keep this gifted young pianist firmly on my radar.”
International Piano, October 2025