Mikhail Pletnev performs Shor-Pletnev, Scriabin, and Chopin

Watch Mikhail Pletnev live from the Dubai Opera, part of the 2022 InClassica Festival! The virtuoso pianist opens the festivities with his own arrangement of a piano sonata written by the festival’s composer-in-residence Alexey Shor, which first premiered in December 2021, before moving on to two related sets of Preludes. First, Scriabin's Op. 11, sparkling gems of the composer's early oeuvre—and then the beloved Op. 28 Preludes by Chopin that inspired the Scriabin set decades later. Both sets devote one prelude to each of the 24 major and minor tonalities, moving through the ascending circle of fifths from the carefree C Major all the way to the stormy D Minor—miniature masterpieces all, each set forming a whole even greater than the sum of its considerable parts.

Photo: Mikhail Pletnev © Aline Paley