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Site review by Geohominid September 18, 2008
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Performance: Sonics (S/MC): / |
Rachmaninov's First Piano Sonata was completed in Dresden in 1908, along with the Second Symphony and an opera (later abandoned unfinished). It is therefore not, as many might think, a student work. The inspiration was for a piece based on the Faust legend, with each of the three movements initially given a programmatic title, although these were later expunged. At one stage Rachmaninov considered it as a piano concerto, and it does indeed have kinship to the first two concertos - and also to Liszt's Sonata in B minor. While it lacks the long flowing melodies which attract popular taste, it nevertheless is a substantial and important work, now sadly lying in the shadow of the Second Piano Sonata, rarely recorded and played only by real connoisseurs.
Olli Mustonen has a composer's ability to see and reveal the overall structure of each movement, and he clearly responds to its dark, boiling passions and Faustian rhetoric, using a full palette of rich, dark tone colours and brilliant technical mastery. This performance captures the listener from the work's first arresting bars, Mustonen plunging his hands into its summary chords and capricious swirls, placing the climaxes unerringly. He understands well Rachmaninov's unique sound-world in the Sonata's slow movement; a kind of improvisatory rhapsodising with lyrical fragments divided across the whole range of the piano in a multi-voiced tapestry of great emotional beauty. Several of the later Preludes and Etudes Tableaux echo this inward, questioning mood. Mustonen is gripping In the commanding finale, with the panache of his sheer nervous energy and overall command bringing its ironical Mephistophelian march to a grand conclusion.
With an imaginative programming stroke, the programme concludes with Tchaikovsky's The Seasons. Often used as a make-weight, here they become miniature tone poems; exquisite, charming, brilliant and satirical in turn. Tchaikovsky wrote them for inclusion in a monthly magazine, so they were intended for domestic use, although many of them are technically very demanding, as I can attest after my youthful attempts to play them. Mustonen clearly loves them, and brings out Tchaikovsky's debt to Schumann in the dozen 'character' pieces, which I had never noticed before.
Ondine's 5.0 surround recording gives us a fine, natural-sounding and three-dimensional picture of the piano, with discreet use of the surround channels, not too close and addidng measure of bloom from the Sello Hall in Espoo. Presentation is up to Ondine's usual standards, and the sleeve notes by Antti Häyrinen are very helpful, particularly in the apt and entertaining summaries of each of the 'Seasons'.
Highly recommended for Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky lovers, and an invitation for anyone interested in Russian music to explore one of its less well-trodden lanes.
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Copyright © 2008 John Miller and SA-CD.net
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Site review by akiralx February 19, 2007
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Performance: Sonics (S): |
A fine disc of some slightly unpopular repertoire - the Rachmaninov First Sonata has a similar structure to the far more well-known Second: a restless first movement, a bitttersweet slow movement, and a tempestuous finale. I can't imagine it being done much better than Mustonen manages here: he has a great technique and an ideally full tone for Rachmaninov - quite surprising as he has the reputation of having a rather crisp, occasionally flinty, tone, as demonstrated on his CDs of the Diabelli Variations and Shostakovich/Bach Preludes and Fugues.
So he plays it very well - but the work can't compare in quality to the Second Sonata, being rather amorphous and without the melodic invention of the later work (best heard in its original version, played by Zoltan Kocsis on Philips, for example).
Tchaikovsky's suite The Seasons is a much finer work, though hardly profound in content. Written to order for publication in a monthly periodical, they are merely superior salon pieces, though none the worse for that. Here Mustonen plays the faster numbers the best, while occasionally the slower ones, like the famous Barcarolle (June), are slightly unbeguiling compared to other readings - but at least he avoids sentimentality.
Sonically this is very pleasing via Stax earspeakers, with an excellent piano given fine presence in a spacious acoustic - the SACD layer eliminates the CD layer's tendency to 'ring' on higher notes above forte. Not a piano demonstration SACD, like Tchetuev's Beethoven Sonata disc is, but very good.
This is recommendable, if you like these pieces or want to get to know them - but I don't find the music particularly interesting, especially the Rachmaninov.
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Copyright © 2007 Alex Leach and SA-CD.net
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