Nikolai Medtner, Russian composer and pianist, mostly wrote piano music with himself in mind as the concerting virtuoso. And he was seen as one of the most remarkable artists of his generation. He was nicknamed “the Russian Brahms” for his conservative approach to the art of composition he manifested in his attachment to the values of the past. He expressed his own opinions on the condition of the artist in the contemporary world in the book The Muse and the Fashion of 1935, where he slammed the excess of form in late Romanticism as well as sensuous impressionism and modernist chaos. His tenets on the spiritual inferiority of new art condemned him to a lonely life in the musical community of Paris and then of London, where he lived till his death.
The "Reminiscenza" Tenth Sonata in A minor belongs to the cycle Zabitiye motivy (“Forgotten Melodies”), composed by Medtner in 1918-20, still before he left Russia. It is the cycle’s first element (Allegretto tranquillo), followed by short dances and canzonas (Danza graziosa, Danza festiva, Canzona fluviala, Danza rustica, Canzona serenata, Danza silvestra), which end in a coda that relates in character to the beginning: Alla Reminiscenza.
The composer’s treatment of the sonata genre is free; he gave it an integrated single-movement form. In the words of Charles Rosen, it is an example of “thinking in sonata terms” rather than of copying a ready-made model. The nickname of Reminiscenza is a reference to the lyrical mood of the piece – to its romantic tone.

Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz