Over the past seven years or so Gordon Fergus-Thompson has regularly broadcast much repertoire of fearsome difficulty on BBC Radio 3—and never does his playing fall below a level of high accomplishment. He is one of a rare breed of players whose passages have a blend of crystalline clarity and a glinting range of colour that allows the virtuosity to emerge as much more than mere note-spinning. Thus Balakirev's famous transcription of Glinka's song The lark has a delicate briliiance that quite transcends the salon genre. In the fluid runs interwoven with melody one can picture the bird soaring high in a blue sky.
When Balakirev published his newly completed Sonata in 1905 it was at once a stylistic anachronism. The first movement for all its fugal dallyings, has no genuine development and the whole mood looks back wistfully to an earlier time, when melody and accompaniment reigned supreme in Russian music. But the period charm is undeniable and Fergus-Thompson highlights the emotional appeal of the themes. The large-toned handling of the second movement, a mazurka, demonstrates the pianist's confidence in this idiom, though I felt that in the third he lays too much emphasis on a rich tone in the left hand, thus distracting one from the melody above it. Perhaps the finale could have gone with a bit more panache.
Scriabin's music makes a fascinating contrast. Whilst it is true that both composers shared a certain weakness in never being able to resist repeating a good motif over and over again, it is the younger Russian who had the stronger character. The secret language of the Poeme in F sharp comes over with just the right dreamy tone and the self-indulgent black fury of its companion is an apt foil. The four-movement Third Sonata, dating from 1897, bears the sub-title ''Soul-states'', and so one is predictably thrown into the thick of the composer's very stormy mind. The uneasy and haunted style is captured quite well, though I felt that in the last movement Fergus-Thompson could have varied the mood more when going from one register to another. The mystically pagan musings of Vers la flamme have all the ecstatic hysteria one could wish for.
Recorded sound is somewhat reverberant and the tone in fortes, had it been more focused, would tend towards clatter. Nor is the instrument always entirely in tune. Nevertheless, here is a generous sample of Russian piano music played with insight and great technical security.
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