Pianist Arthur Loesser refered to the encore-type fare making up this recital as “cream of corn”, and he took great pleasure in serving heaping portions to happy audiences. Most of the two dozen pieces Philip Martin selects evoke memories of artists who regularly programmed and recorded them: Paderewski, Hofmann, Friedman, de Pachmann, plus “Romantic Revivalists” like Earl Wild, Jorge Bolet, and Shura Cherkassky. Martin’s liquid sonority and refined fingerwork convincingly reproduce Sibelius’ Spruce Tree, Tchaikovsky’s Chanson Triste, Mendelssohn’s Spring Song, Nevin’s Narcissus, and Palmgren’s May Night.
The pianist’s rounded edges and gentle demeanor suit other works less effectively. The wild rose depicted in MacDowell’s famous Op. 51 No. 1 nearly wilts, Raff’s La Fileuse dawdles at the loom, and the decorative arpeggios in Sinding’s Rustle of Spring provide little breeze in relation to, say, Cherkassky’s virile, sweeping line. Other pianists, too, project more contrast and cumulative momentum over the course of Handel’s Harmonious Blacksmith variations (Cortot, Rachmaninov, Wild, Richter, Schiff, to name a few).
In contrast, Martin imparts a fresh, angular spin to Dvorák’s hackneyed Humoresque in G-flat and deftly points up the twinkling runs in Victor Herbert’s cute and kitschy Le Coquette. In addition to Hyperion’s top-drawer engineering, Jeremy Nicholas’ delightful annotations tell you all you’ll ever need to know about these works and their composers. In sum, Martin’s inspiration moves in fits and starts, but his playing is never less than pretty.
