Evgeny Kissin does an excellent job with this well-planned recital, featuring three very different Russian composers active in the first decades of the 20th century: the hyper-Romantic Scriabin, the conservative Medtner, and the modernist Stravinsky. Kissin plays Scriabin’s Five Preludes Op. 15 with plenty of poetry and a light, fluid touch that’s just right for these Chopinesque miniatures. His rhythmic freedom in the opening movement of the Third sonata may raise a few eyebrows, but it goes a long way toward breaking up the music’s potential rhythmic monotony and repetitiveness. The Andante is very beautifully phrased, with careful attention to dynamics and to the subtle tempo modifications that Scriabin requires. Kissin’s variety of tone and touch also prevents the finale from sounding like an endless gloss on the middle section of Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C-sharp minor, which is what you basically get in a rondo whose main theme is a descending chromatic scale.
Medtner’s Sonata-Reminiscenza Op. 38 No. 1 is a single-movement edifice lasting about a quarter hour. Like so much of this composer’s music, it’s effectively structured but curiously elusive thematically, and Kissin once again shapes the piece quite effectively, if with less linear clarity than Marc-André Hamelin in his complete set of the Medtner sonatas on Hyperion (he also gives you the rest of Op. 38’s “Forgotten Melodies”). Still, the comparison makes for very interesting listening, particularly as both players wind up with virtually identical timings despite striking differences in terms of sectional contrast. Kissin’s habitual “romantic mode” of expression suits the Three Movements from Pétrouchka less well, at least if you imprinted on the steely brilliance and coolly impersonal reference recording by Maurizio Pollini (DG). There’s certainly no denying that Kissin has the technique: he plays with impressive virtuosity, and both the opening Danse russe and concluding La Semaine grasse sparkle with color and punchy rhythms. So if Kissin makes a bit of a meal Chez Pétrouchka, well, that’s what the pianistic heavy-hitters do. Fine sonics courtesy of Germany’s SWR top off an extremely enjoyable release. [11/14/2005]
