pFor several generations of performers and audiences, Medtner has lain overlooked somewhere between the genius of Rachmaninoff and Scriabin and the juggernaut of Prokofiev's 'modernist' masterpieces. But he is not just a quintessential Russian composer he is a master for all, and now perhaps his time has come. -- Eugene IstominbrFaced with decades of shifting styles, compositional vogues, and musical trends that characterized the early 20th century, composer-pianist Nikolai Medtner 1880-1951 remained faithful to the standard of clarity of purpose he learned from a lifetime of active performance of the classical masters. Above all, he considered himself Beethoven's student in spirit, and with the principal meanings and unwritten laws that are the foundation of musical language. In later years, Alexander Glazunov called Medtner an artist guarding the eternal laws of art.brAmong Medtner's most popular pieces are the so-called Fairy Tales for piano works he called iskazki i-- the Russian t