Trained in Kyiv, his hometown, then in Austria where he lives today, Dmytro Choni - Bronze Medalist at the 2022 Van Cliburn, Gold Medalist at the Santander Paloma O’Shea in 2018 - imagines for his recording debut with naive an ingenious and mischievous dialogue between Paradise and Hell, in direct echo to the Divine Comedy of Dante Aligheri, the essential poet of the late Italian Middle Ages, who was a strong influence on a Romanticism that was looking for it’s roots.

The luminous pieces, with soothing melodies, embody Paradise. The first opus of his compatriot Valentyn Silvestrov, whose aesthetic recalls the quiet beauty of Kyiv, the calm Bagatelles open the present journey in elegiac tones, even if here and there, as in the moving Moderato median, some beginnings of a coming anxiety emerge.

The terrifying darkness will burst forth from the incipit of Apres une lecture de Dante (Liszt), where Choni becomes the devil himself. In this fantasia quasi sonata, hell is a tragic whirlwind, and the passionate impulses transcribe the unhappy passion of Paolo and Francesca. Then a new, devastating contrast.

The centrepiece of the second part of Debussy’s Images for piano, Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut, introduce another Paradise, where Orient meet ancient Greece, both dreamed and fantasised; the French composer captures in the very sounds of the Balinese gamelan our sense of wonder when looking at ancient temples.

The culmination point of the program, L’Isle Joyeuse, speaks more of the joy linked to budding love. In this highly virtuosic piece inspired by Watteau (Embarquement pour Cythere, 1718), just as much a fictional reduction of a ballet with orchestra, Debussy achieves a unique sensual energy, truly erotic.

The gentle limpidity of Silvestrov’s Postludium finally ends this program where Dmytro Choni, with his ever-lively and incisive fingers, becomes above all, like Charon on the Styx, a ferryman between the worlds.

Valentyn Silvestrov: 3 Bagatelles, Op. 1
Franz Liszt: Années de pèlerinage II, S. 161 Italie: VII. Après une lecture du Dante. Fantasia quasi Sonata
Claude Debussy: Images, 2ème série, CD 120: II. Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut
Claude Debussy: L’isle joyeuse, CD 109
Lowell Liebermann: Gargoyles
Valentyn Silvestrov: Postludium, Op. 5

On what is a breathtakingly cultured, clean and mature new recording, it opens on Silvestrov’s 3 Bagatelles, Op. 1; with the fluently ornate Allegretto followed by the conjured beauty within Moderato and closed on by the fluttering Moderato. Then we get Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage II, S. 161 Italie: VII. Après une lecture du Dante. Fantasia quasi Sonata, which is a stridently cultured piece unto itself, and then we are brought forth the Debussy’s Images, 2ème série, CD 120: II. Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut (a majestically serene piece).

Along next is Debussy’s simply sparkling L’isle joyeuse, CD 109 which is itself followed seamlessly by Liebermann’s gorgeous Gargoyles; which begins with the spirited Presto, the sumptuous Adagio semplice, ma con molto rubato, the veritably glistening Allegro moderato, rounding out on the forthright Presto feroce, the works closing out on Silvestrov’s opulent Postludium, Op. 5.

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