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Sokolov Up And Down

Jed Distler

Artistic Quality:

Sound Quality:

Grigory Sokolov’s 1970s recording of the Beethoven “Hammerklavier” sonata (issued on LP and CD by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab) was stolid and square; his live August 23, 2013 Salzburg Festival performance proves even more so. Taking the first movement at considerably less than Allegro, Sokolov rounds off the music’s edges and underplays important dynamic indications, such as the build-up to the recapitulation. Compared to the earlier Scherzo’s half-hearted rhythmic spring, the present reading is slow and enervated.

While the Trio’s Presto is fast and light, its climactic upward F major scale is anything but furious. The fugal finale is as steady, well calibrated, and lacking in nervous tension as before. “No other pianist comes close to Sokolov here, either intellectually or technically,” claims annotator Oswald Beaujean, who evidentally has not heard technically comparable yet intellectually superior fugues from Claudio Arrau, Solomon, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Peter Serkin. However, Sokolov bests his younger self in the Adagio sostenuto on account of a slightly faster basic tempo and firmer linear projection.

Sokolov’s prodigious arsenal of nuances and inhumanly even trills ravishingly come into play throughout the five Rameau encores, while his rhetorical, large-scaled way with Brahms’ B-flat minor Intermezzo convinces.

Sokolov’s all-Schubert program recorded May 12, 2013 in Warsaw also has its ups and downs, but the ups are really up. The pianist justifies his slow, monumental conception of the C minor Impromptu with carefully scaled dynamics and hypnotically sustained long lines. No. 2’s detached articulation and overly deliberate pulse sounds more like an abstraction than a realization of Schubert’s score. If Sokolov’s point-making dissipates No. 4’s continuity at times, his precision control cannot be denied. Happily, Sokolov takes No. 3 at a true alla breve and sings out the beloved melodies in a full-throated, flexible, and heartfelt manner.

In the first of D. 946’s three pieces, Sokolov follows Arrau and Pires by restoring the music that Schubert crossed out in his manuscript. His heavy, tenuto-ridden playing of the main E-flat minor theme holds little appeal, but his lyrical simplicity and tellingly contoured left-hand work in No. 2 compensate. Better still is Sokolov’s exciting sprint through No. 3, where his pronounced dynamic contrasts imbue the music with a palpable and appropriately Beethovenian spin, not to mention his incisive phrasing of the cross-rhythmic patterns. A pity that Sokolov’s “Hammerklavier” lacks these qualities!


Recording Details:

Reference Recording: Beethoven Op. 106: Arrau (Philips), Schubert D. 899: Lupu (Decca), Schubert D. 946: Pires (DG)

  • :
    Franz Schubert: Impromptus D. 899; Klavierstüke D. 946
    Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major Op. 106 (“Hammerklavier”)
    Jean-Philippe Rameau: Suite in D major: Les tendres plaintes, Les tourbillons, Les cyclopes, La follette; Suite in G major: Les sauvages
    Johannes Brahms: Intermezzi Op. 117: No. 2 in B-flat minor

    Soloists: Gregory Sokolov (piano)

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