With this entertaining and unusual CD, Frederic Chiu completes his admirable survey of the piano works of Prokofiev. Although the disc may have the appearance of an “odds and ends” collection, it’s actually very cleverly planned around the concept of “transcription”. This is particularly apt in the case of Prokofiev, because all of his music is essentially piano music, and a lot of the character of his orchestral output stems from the very awkwardness of it actually sounding like piano music transcribed (unlike Ravel, for example, who could re-imagine a piano work in a totally idiomatic orchestration). So what we’re listening to here are more like original, fully legitimate alternate versions. Chiu’s own arrangement of the music from Kijé (two items of which appeared earlier in the series) proves this point dramatically: it sounds like perfectly normal piano music, and is indistinguishable from the composer’s other transcription work. The works themselves are uniformly delightful–the “Cinderella” pieces and the Divertissement particularly. As a bonus, Chiu includes Prokofiev’s arrangements of a Buxtehude fugue and some Schubert Waltzes, as well as the little Gavotte from the composer’s incidental music to “Hamlet”. Chiu’s playing recalls descriptions of the composer’s own: brilliant, dry, percussive, witty, and a little shy on warmth, but there’s no denying his close identification with the music or his ability to project a true Prokofiev sound. A worthy conclusion to an excellent series.
