Jeni Slotchiver’s musicianly pianism is largely at one with the lucid polyphony, strange harmonic allusions, and emotional restraint characterizing the first five of Busoni’s Six Sonatinas. Next to Roland Pöntinen’s gentler, more rounded performances on CPO, Slotchiver’s comparable feeling for tone color and textural variety yields more dramatic contrast in the Fourth sonatina’s turbulent middle section and the Second sonatina’s polytonal figurations. She hasn’t internalized these scores to the degree of Paul Jacobs’ faster and more flexible traversals, yet her love and affinity for the composer’s elusive style is self-evident. By contrast, the so-called Carmen Fantasy (Sonatina No. 6) is not as effortless and supple as it might have been. Slotchiver holds back when the music should soar and scintillate in the manner of Jacobs, or as heard in John Ogdon’s classic recording, not to mention examples from the 78 era’s still unsurpassed holy trinity of Claudio Arrau, Egon Petri, and Michael von Zadora.
While Slotchiver’s powerful and intelligently proportioned account of the Bach-Busoni Toccata, Adagio and Fugue may not roar and thunder like Woo Paik or Evgeny Kissin, she avoids the latter’s mincing mannerisms. Moreover, the pianist benefits from Max Wilcox’s strong production values and the excellent acoustics of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Look closely at the informal cover photo of Busoni: were he and Harpo Marx separated at birth?
