DMITRY BLAGOY
Russian pianist (1930-1986)

Dmitry Blagoy was a poet, a painter, a composer, a journalist and musicologist, and an awfully good pianist. He was discovered by Alexander Goldenweiser who sent him to the Central music school for gifted chldren at age six and became a student of Goldenweiser's at the Moscow Conservatory where he taught after graduation.

We begin with a piano sonata of Blagoy's own devising. It is a beautiful piece with a marvelous elasticity of phrasing.

I find his performance of the pieces Grieg to be delicious, This music is so often played in a straightforward manner, possibly because the delight in them derives not from their melodies, but from the subtle rhythmic alterations that their performance style demands. Here, Blagoy revels in the mood, preforming this piece in ways musical notation has no capability to encapsulate on the page.

And the pieces by Glinka with which I was entirely unfamiliar are lovely. I have had to reevaluate Glinka, the composer, in the context of the best of the early romantic composers of music for piano solo. The mazurkas are wonderful pieces which make me want to say move over Chopin and make room for Glinka. Dmitry Blagoy makes magic of this music.

Blagoy  Piano Sonata