For his second Honens solo CD release Georgy Tchaidze offers an all-Russian program featuring Mussorgsky’s ubiquitous Pictures at an Exhibition alongside the less frequently performed Prokofiev Fourth sonata and Medtner Op. 34 Fairy Tales.
Tchaidze’s agile technique and innate musicality serve Medtner’s idiom well, although his tendency to round off phrases softens the music’s classical edges. Compare, for example, Tchaidze’s gentler shaping of No. 2’s rapid toccata-like motive in the left hand to the stronger anchoring presence that Hamish Milne projects. The Prokofiev Fourth sonata stands out for Tchaidze’s deft characterization of lyrical episodes, and for the way his pointed articulation creates the illusion of throwing away phrases.
Tchaidze launches Pictures at an Exhibition’s opening Promenade at a speedwalk, then makes a crude, unwritten ritard into the main theme’s final statement. Gnomus begins with effective stabbing fortes, but the body of this movement lacks tension and rhythmic bite. The Old Castle is slightly understated yet appreciably steady, while Tuilleries contains a few un-Mussorgskian speed-ups and tenutos that are more mannered than expressive. Tchaidze’s provincial broadening of the tempo right before the loudest statement of Bydlo’s main theme proves similarly gauche. The Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks is fleet and supple, but why does Tchaidze stretch out Samuel Goldenburg and Schmuyle’s repeated notes in such a hunt-and-peck manner?
The Limoges Marketplace movement is fast, accurate, and uneventful. However, Tchaidze evokes a sustained desolate atmosphere in Con mortuis in lingua mortua by transforming the right-hand tremolos into slow and steady pulsing—an unorthodox yet convincing textural change. The last two movements promise more than they deliver: we might wish for more heft in the Hut of Baba Yaga’s big chords and taxing octaves, and a stronger sense of long lines throughout the Great Gate at Kiev, where Tchaidze’s pounding scales tend to pull focus from the melodies that ought to dominate. In short, Tchaidze’s Mussorgsky has some arresting moments, his Medtner is very good, but his Prokofiev is the real deal.
