Among record collectors there are desert-island discs –the handful of discs you’d take to said isolated island– and dream discs –recordings that would have gone to the top of the charts if only the record companies were as wise as you. Now, Mikhail Pletnev has made a recording of the early preludes of Frédéric Chopin and Alexander Scriabin, which I’ve waited a lifetime for –and it’s a dream.

   Both Chopin and Scriabin were devotees of J.S. Bach’s preludes and fugues in the “Well-tempered Clavier.” Chopin took up the pattern with his own 24 Preludes, Opus 28, and Scriabin, with his Opus 11, took his inspiration from both Bach and Chopin. They’re too rarely performed together, but both of their explorations of “the circle of fifths” –all the major and minor keys in sequence– are treasures

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