If this recording is anything to go by, Evgeny Kissin is not so much miscast in Schubert’s sublime and difficult-to-sustain posthumous B-flat Sonata as he is floundering in rough water way over his head. The pianist pokes and jabs at the opening pages, never settling on a basic pulse within the slow parameters he sets, tripping over dozens of contrived, inchoate rubatos in the process. As a result, the movement’s “heavenly length” seems interminable. Richter and Berman also favored a slow first movement, but they at least kept things moving and alive. Similarly, Kissin’s static, bland reading of the slow movement conveys little sense of the music’s long, singing lines and tragic underpinnings. While the Scherzo is perky and crisp, Kissin glosses over its Trio’s syncopated accents, blissfully unaware. Likewise, the Finale’s contrasting gaiety and strife are not so distinctly characterized as in the hands of more probing Schubertians such as Goode, Brendel, Serkin, and Lupu. And given Kissin’s technical genius I’m surprised how heavy-handedly he dispatches the minor-key dotted rhythms.
The four Schubert/Liszt songs fare considerably better, even if Kissin’s glib phrasing of the accompaniments is more about Liszt than Schubert (if Kissin knows the original songs, it’s not really evident in his playing). I can’t decide if I prefer Kissin’s earlier, more impulsive performance of Ständchen on DG or his riper, less spontaneous remake. Ending with unhyphenated Liszt, Kissin starts Mephisto Waltz at a brisk, energetic clip, only to break the line with fussy, superfluous ritards. He underplays the central love music yet tosses off the triplet octaves and infamous right-hand leaps with pulverizing assurance and hair-raising accuracy on the level of the classic Ashkenazy Decca recording. Kissin’s great moments are the stuff of piano legend, but his musical core remains in a state of arrested development.
