This all-Chopin recital hits and misses. Simon Trpčeski perceives the B-flat minor sonata’s first movement as display sections rather than a unified whole. You’ll notice, for example, how the triplet chords following the second subject speed up for no apparent reason. More often than not in slow music (not just for this movement, but also throughout the sonata and in three of the Scherzi) Trpčeski allows Chopin’s melodic profile to meander under a vague, introspective halo. But if you fall asleep while the Funeral March trio droops and drags, the supple and scintillating unison octaves in the Finale surely will wake you up.
Trpčeski’s power and assurance lend excitement to the first and second scherzo’s outer sections, notwithstanding glib moments such as No. 2’s flippantly tossed-off triplet upbeats. No. 4 boasts impressively poised and lightly sprung chord playing on a level of the young Ashkenazy’s EMI recording. In Trpčeski’s hands No. 3 is both imaginatively detailed and all of one piece, once you accept his vehement hammering out of the introductory measures in strict tempo. At this stage of the game, Trpčeski remains a young, forceful pianistic presence who is still finding his way as an interpreter.
