Many pianists treat Prokofiev’s sonatas as paeans to the steel industry. François-Frederic Guy, though, makes a priority of projecting the rich motherlode of musical ideas throughout the Sixth and Eighth sonatas. Rarely in the Sixth’s finale, for instance, do you hear the motoric left hand chords accompanying the dazzling right hand descending scales shaped so cogently, with every pitch audible. Guy also points up the lengthy first-movement central section’s kinship to Debussy’s soundworld and brings remarkable diversity of texture and sonority to the second movement’s difficult-to-voice chords that perpetually leapfrog from one register to another.
Similarly, Guy treats the altogether sunnier Eighth sonata from the bottom up, letting the bass lines lead in a manner utterly different from and equally convincing alongside Sviatoslav Richter’s more prism-like, crisper pianism. Like Mikhail Pletnev, Guy revels in the third movement’s woodwind-inspired interjections, but with a thousand percent more vitality and dynamic sweep. In sum, Guy’s artistry shines through Naïve’s roomy, slightly metallic sonics.
