Recorded between 1968 and 1971, Roberto Szidon’s Scriabin cycle (available again via Arkivmusic.com’s on-demand reprint program) offers a blunt, sometimes over-the-top, and not 100-percent-note-accurate performing style, where climaxes generate both point and mass. He does not articulate Presto movements with the rhythmic verve and supple poise that we hear from Ashkenazy or Hamelin (the Second, Third, and Fourth sonata second movements, or the Seventh’s compact opening section, to cite a few examples), yet the fiery trills in the Sixth and Ninth sonatas boast genuine stinging impact. More fluent, forward-moving renditions of the Op. 28 Fantasy make the music sound more cohesive than it is, in contrast to Szidon’s choppy, stop/start phrasing, although his similarly subjective way with the teenage composer’s Chopin-esque patterns in the 1886 G-sharp minor Sonata-Fantasy is akin to spiking a soft drink, and more power to him. In sum, this is not a Scriabin cycle for “everyday use” (to paraphrase a great line by one of my British colleagues), but one to infrequently mete out in small doses.
