The celebrated Portuguese artist Artur Pizarro continues his landmark recording of the complete solo piano works of Sergei Rachmaninov for Odradek Records with the second volume. This 2-CD set includes both sets of Preludes, the Variations on a theme of Chopin and the less familiar Morceaux de Fantaisie.

Described as a “poet amongst pianists”, Artur Pizarro first encountered Rachmaninov aged 6, when his grandmother gave him an LP of the First and Second Piano Concertos performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy: “I was left speechless by the sounds, harmonies and textures. I knew right away that I would have to play these works someday.”

When he was 18, he first performed Rachmaninov in public when he won the 1987 Vianna da Motta Competition in Lisbon. Rachmaninov featured again when Pizarro won the 1990 Leeds International Pianoforte Competition which catapulted him to international fame.

The pianist says: “Through these recordings I want to invite you into the personal world of one of the true great Romantics, a composer, conductor and pianist who voices his most personal thoughts, sadnesses and joys through an instrument he understands with a degree of knowledge very few have achieved. I want to let his message and his music speak for itself. One thing I have truly learned during this project is that he is a figure still not completely understood by the world as he truly defies being put in a box...”