Pianist Vanessa Benelli Mosell has named her second album for Decca Light, a subject that preoccupied both of the composers she features. As with Licht, Stockhausen’s cycle of seven operas, the visionary Scriabin wanted to create massive, total works of art, integrating light and colour with music and dance. Benelli Mosell, once mentored by Stockhausen, plays his Klavierstuck XII, drawn from Donnerstag aus Licht, with considerable aplomb (complete with the required shouts, clicks and whistles), but it’s her performance of Scriabin’s 24 Preludes Op. 11 that stands out. Powerful, emotional, romantic and dramatic, she sweeps us along in a dazzling display of assured technique.
