Mao Fujita - 72 Preludes

Following his 'consistently impressive' (Gramophone) traversal of Mozart's complete Piano Sonatas for Sony Classical - winner of an Opus Klassik Award - Japanese pianist Mao Fujita presents a similarly ambitious project: matching sets of 24 Preludes by three composers, Frédéric Chopin, Alexander Scriabin and Akio Yashiro.

In so doing, Fujita unites the Europe in which he now lives with the Japan where he was born and raised.

Chopin's landmark set of 24 Préludes, completed in 1839, was the first work to treat the piano prelude as a self-contained work capable of standing alone. After the model laid down in Bach's Well Tempered Clavier, the set traverses every key from C major to D minor, alternating major tonalities with their relative minors.

On his new album 72 Preludes, Fujita treats Chopin's expressive yet elusive cycle as the basis for a dialogue that traverses borders and epochs. In 1884, Russian visionary Alexander Scriabin began work on his own set of 24 Preludes, directly inspired by Chopin's. Scriabin's pieces build on the grace and fluency of Chopin's - also using his key scheme - while showing glimpses of the composer's emerging radical harmonic and rhythmic character. They suggest that Scriabin, known for music on a huge scale, was an exquisite miniaturist.

Mao Fujita - recognized increasingly for his intelligent programming as well as for his affectionate, rooted and deeply poetic playing - was keen to combine these European masterpieces with work from his homeland. In the 24 Preludes by Japanese composer Akio Yashiro, he found a perfect companion.

Akio Yashiro was born in Tokyo and studied with Olivier Messiaen in Paris, where the two became close friends. His 24 Preludes, mapping the same cycle of keys as those by Chopin and Scriabin, date from 1945.

The works incorporate a huge variety of moods and styles as their young composer explores varied harmonic and rhythmic devices with panache. Fujita likens the contents of his new recording to a refreshing but hearty sushi meal: 'If the Chopin and the Scriabin are the fish and the rice, the base, the Yashiro is the wasabi - just as vital, and with that special kick to create something delicious.'

In 1976, Yashiro died aged just 46. Fujita has since developed a friendship with the composer's widow, who has shared stories surrounding the composer's weekly Saturday concerts of new music and the compositional methodology of his 24 Preludes, which the composer once described as 'the pieces in which I express myself most fully and one of the greatest pieces I ever wrote.' Fujita consulted the original manuscripts before recording the work.