It has taken a long time for an outstanding set of Persichetti’s 12 piano sonatas to make it to CD, but Geoffrey Burleson’s performances certainly have been worth the wait. Although not terribly ambitious in size (all 12 works fit onto two CDs totaling approximately 150 minutes of music), their range is astonishing. In the first few pieces Persichetti works his way from a highly melodic form of 12-tone expressionism (No. 1, of 1939) through Hindemith’s more tonal neo-classicism, culminating in the large Fourth Sonata of 1949, in which his mature style seems fully present and well-integrated. This doesn’t mean that the early works aren’t rewarding, or that the later ones all sound the same–far from it.
Sonatas Nos. 7 and 8 are brief, punchy miniatures. No. 10 is the largest of the set, arguably Persichetti’s most important keyboard work. No. 11 is a spiky, very harmonically advanced (read atonal) essay in several linked sections that still somehow manages to preserve a sense of melodic flow. This is in no small part thanks to Burleson’s extremely well-recorded and sympathetic performances, which capture the music’s fundamentally lyrical inspiration in even the densest thickets of notes (and this music is packed with incident). His excellent technique and firm rhythmic sense serve him particularly well in the big pieces (Nos. 1, 4, 10, and 11), though the simpler charms of Sonatas Nos. 2, 5, 7, and 8 find him equally at home. In sum, this is a highly noteworthy release of some tough, intelligent, finely wrought music–a major statement on all fronts.
