Prokofiev Piano Sonatas 1 & 2
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Sergey Rachmaninov
Label: Kingdom
Magazine Review Date: 6/1989
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 72
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: KCLCD2007
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Sonata for Piano No. 1 |
Sergey Rachmaninov, Composer
Gordon Fergus-Thompson, Piano Sergey Rachmaninov, Composer |
| Sonata for Piano No. 2 |
Sergey Rachmaninov, Composer
Gordon Fergus-Thompson, Piano Sergey Rachmaninov, Composer |
Composer or Director: Sergey Rachmaninov
Label: Kingdom
Magazine Review Date: 6/1989
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CKCL2007
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Sonata for Piano No. 1 |
Sergey Rachmaninov, Composer
Gordon Fergus-Thompson, Piano Sergey Rachmaninov, Composer |
| Sonata for Piano No. 2 |
Sergey Rachmaninov, Composer
Gordon Fergus-Thompson, Piano Sergey Rachmaninov, Composer |
Author: rgolding
Rachmaninov's Preludes and his Etudes-Tableaux are a well known and established part of the pianist's repertory, but his two sonatas seldom get an airing in the concert hall (although, as can be seen they are well enough represented on records). The First of them dates from 1907 and is thus contemporaneous with the Second Symphony; it is a work of formidable dimensions, lasting nearly three-quarters of an hour. The Second was composed between January and September 1913, at the same time as the choral symphony The Bells. It, too, is a substantial work, lasting nearly half an hour in its original form. However in 1931, Rachmaninov made a substantial revision of the piece, thinning out the texture in many places and reducing its timing to about 18 minutes, as he told his friend Alfred Swan, ''I look at my early works and see how much there is that is superfluous. Even in this sonata so many parts are moving simultaneously, and it is too long. Chopin's Sonata [the Funeral March, in the same key] lasts nineteen minutes, and all has been said.''
For many years it was this revised version of the B flat minor Sonata that was habitually played but more recently the original, or sometimes a conflation of the two, as in Horowitz's famous recording (CBS, 11/71 or RCA, 7/82—both nla) has, surely rightly, come back into favour. The original version of the Second Sonata is the one favoured by the brilliant young English pianist Gordon Fergus-Thompson on this fine recording from Kingdom. The formidable technical difficulties seem to present no problems for him, and he has an impressive grasp of the music's span and scale. In the even longer D minor Sonata he is equally impressive, and gives an account of this huge work that is nothing short of masterly.
The Kingdom issue has the advantage over the other recordings listed above in that it is the only one to offer both sonatas, with the Second in its original version, on one disc. Howard Shelley's sensitive and attractive Hyperion performance of No. 1 is coupled with the revised version of No. 2; his account of the original version of No. 2 is coupled with a collection of other so-called ''Early Piano Works'', and the impressive, but to my ears rather relentless, interpretation by the Russian pianist Victor Eresco on Le Chant du Monde/ Harmonia Mundi also presents the B flat minor Sonata in its shortened form. John Browning's poetic and imaginative performance of the 1913 version of the Second Sonata has much to be said in its favour (though the Delos/John Goldsmith recording is hardly of top quality), but it has to be borne in mind that the remainder of his programme consists of shorter pieces such as Preludes andEtudes-Tableaux. The best of all these recordings of the Second Sonata is the electrifying one by Vladimir Ashkenazy on Decca, his concern to present the sonata in the best possible light in no way diminished by the fact that he follows the 1913 text in its essentials but incorporates some features from the 1931 revision, but—and it is a considerable factor—Ashkenazy's performance comes on a two-CD set that also contains the 24 Preludes. So if it is the two sonatas that you want, in Urtext versions, Gordon Fergus-Thompson's expansive and authoritative performances, vividly recorded by Kingdom, are at the moment a dear first choice.'
For many years it was this revised version of the B flat minor Sonata that was habitually played but more recently the original, or sometimes a conflation of the two, as in Horowitz's famous recording (CBS, 11/71 or RCA, 7/82—both nla) has, surely rightly, come back into favour. The original version of the Second Sonata is the one favoured by the brilliant young English pianist Gordon Fergus-Thompson on this fine recording from Kingdom. The formidable technical difficulties seem to present no problems for him, and he has an impressive grasp of the music's span and scale. In the even longer D minor Sonata he is equally impressive, and gives an account of this huge work that is nothing short of masterly.
The Kingdom issue has the advantage over the other recordings listed above in that it is the only one to offer both sonatas, with the Second in its original version, on one disc. Howard Shelley's sensitive and attractive Hyperion performance of No. 1 is coupled with the revised version of No. 2; his account of the original version of No. 2 is coupled with a collection of other so-called ''Early Piano Works'', and the impressive, but to my ears rather relentless, interpretation by the Russian pianist Victor Eresco on Le Chant du Monde/ Harmonia Mundi also presents the B flat minor Sonata in its shortened form. John Browning's poetic and imaginative performance of the 1913 version of the Second Sonata has much to be said in its favour (though the Delos/John Goldsmith recording is hardly of top quality), but it has to be borne in mind that the remainder of his programme consists of shorter pieces such as Preludes and
Prokofiev Piano Sonatas 1 & 2
Prokofiev Piano Sonatas 1 & 2
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