A most absorbing programme, compellingly performed. The Barber, of course, is an excellent benchmark for the talents of any pianist and in the restless lyricism of the second subject I began to feel rather than hear David Allen Wehr's quality—the manner is expansive, the ebb and flow of the phrase-line beautifully placed, and he conveys so well the futility (if that's not too strong a word) of this recurring idea as it repeatedly tries, and fails, to establish a lyric calm within the movement. No less impressive is his sustained way with the sinuous harmonies and grandly sonorous climax of the slow movement, while the piquant scherzo and unstoppable finale so redolent of those Bartok and Prokofiev toccatas—are fearlessly encountered. One small observation: he might have made something a little more tantalizing of the scherzo's brief trio with its whiff of the jazz age. More of a smile. The piece contains precious few of those after all.
Corigliano's Fantasia on an ostinato has quite a reputation—as well it might. The ostinato in question is that of the Allegretto from Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, materializing slowly (very slowly) but surely over the first ten or so minutes of the piece but never fully revealed until then. And there, in a nutshell, is the intrigue: the way in which Corigliano plays with our powers of recognition our ability to hear beyond what we are actualiy given. In one sense it's a kind of ''minimalist'' game—in another, something much more. These are highly charged notes through which the performer (who is given leave to colour and lengthen Corigliano's repetitions at will) can to some extent turn co-creator. Wehr's input is plainly considerable.
And considerable would certainly describe his account of the Copland. To call this ingenious variational work-out ''a brilliant exercise'' is to do it no small injustice. Yet that's essentially what it is—a study, an object lesson in variational technique, where the theme really is all-pervasive and every chord, every note, has a strictly defined purpose. It's terse, tough, and ruthlessly efficient. Small wonder people reach for urban metaphors. Nothing urban about the Vincent Persichetti Sonata: you can hear a student of Roy Harris in its cragginess and the simple song at its heart definitely belongs to the land. Which leaves John Walter Pozdro's Four Preludes, and here the colours and harmony are distinctly central European. I hear more Debussy than anything else, but that's a purely subjective response. These are heady little creations. I was particularly struck by the ardent No. 3—the most extended of the four.
All that remains, then, is for me to say that Chandos have produced probably the best solo piano sound I've heard from them and that if this, as I suspect, is Wehr's debut recording—more of the same, please.'