I have to admit to being slightly nonplussed by Marco Polo's philosophy. Their decision to steer clear of the mainstream and concentrate on the more neglected areas of the repertoire is both admirable and enterprising, their rather haphazard, hasty approach to recording this material, on the other hand, seems to me to undo all the good intentions. Adam Fellegi is, I am sure, a very capable and talented pianist. I am not convinced, however, that he is a natural Medtner interpreter, or that he has even been given time enough really to assimilate this music. True, there are fleeting moments of genuine insight, but these seem far outweighed by passages that sound no more than mere run-throughs.
The Sonata tragica for instance comes over (to my ears at least) as a brilliant piece of sightreading, with much of the music glossed over and hindered by an unyielding approach to tempos that leaves scarcely any time for the listener to appreciate the many subtleties of Medtner's piano writing. It's not helped, either, by Fellegi's rather narrow dynamic range (though in fairness this is compounded by a less than ideally balanced recording, not to mention a slightly out of tune piano) which is acutely apparent in the opening pages of the Tragica where we find little or no contrast between the impassioned opening bars and the nostalgic beauty of the second subject. One needs just to turn to the Medtner recordings by Hamish Milne (CRD, 3/90) or Earl Wild (Chesky) to realize just how much of this music slips through Fellegi's fingers. Only in the rather intimate, introspective musings of the Sonate-Idylle, Op. 56 did I feel that Fellegi was at all at home in this repertoire; but I'm afraid it's a case of too little too late for it to have any redeeming effect on this generally disappointing foray into Medtner's art.'