The Prokofiev centenary (1991) brought a flood of recorded tributes reminding us of artistic limitation as well as scintillating virtue. The nine piano sonatas in particular have, arguably, worn less well than other undoubted masterpieces (the First Violin Sonata, the Cello Sonata, Op. 119) largely because once Prokofiev was safely past the derivative and romantic opulence of his First Sonata he surely flouted his iconoclasm, his nailing of revolutionary colours to the mast, a little too obviously. The rhetoric of the so-called 'War' Sonatas (Nos. 6-8) has already started to date and the supposed image of a world divorced from reason or equilibrium has somehow diminished in power. For this reason the less familiar sonatas (Nos. 4 and 5, for example) have come to seem preferable, though Nos. 6-8 understandably remain a virtuoso's paradise.
At all events such music needs very special treatment if a satisfying balance between lean brilliance and lyricism is to be achieved, and it is precisely this quality that is missing from Ovchinikov's performances. A top international prize-winner, he now seems unable to summon the necessary sinew and energy for such music, sinking into grateful lethargy whenever possible and in the process making Prokofiev's longueurs (the Tempo di valzer lentissimo from the Sixth Sonata or the goose-stepping march from the Eighth Sonata's finale) seem interminable. In the First Sonata an irresistible impression is formed of someone feeling their way in the dark when they should be surging forward in full romantic cry. Even the savagely glinting Scherzo from the Second Sonata lacks propulsion, and while its virtuoso squib of a finale has a bit more fizz and bite it still seems perversely muted. More generally it is disturbing to find that it is precisely those moments when Prokofiev's malignant rhythm is at its most taut and tightly coiled that Ovchinikov is at his weakest. The wild final gesture of defiance that closes the Sixth Sonata provides a good example of how force and directness can be clouded by rhythmic imprecision.
Still, there are intermittent successes. Ovchinikov may sound soft-centred in the toughest pages but he responds attractively to Prokofiev's mock-menace in the Fifth Sonata's central Andante. Ideally, such wit and mischief-making require a more beady-eyed aplomb but the playing is deft and fluent, creating its own ambience. And so it does, too, in the Eighth Sonata where terms such as inquieto, feroce and con brio at last take on more of their full meaning. Ovchinikov is also sympathetic to the calmer stretches of the Ninth Sonata, a curious work where quirkiness and aridity are finally resolved in a magical coda. Certainly those who prefer cultivated circumspection to a more traditional raciness and exuberance will find much to enjoy here, though even they will feel short-changed elsewhere, and most particularly in the precipitato 7/8 finale of the Seventh Sonata, which should be as inexorable as a tribal drum beat but which here sounds tame and detached.
This three-CD set allows for extra material and so, oddly placed at the beginning rather than the end, there is an attractive selection of encores. To start with the Toccata, where Russia's enfant terrible is in full motoric attack, is swashbuckling in theory. But, again, Ovchinikov is too cautious to create sufficient impact. His way with the Cinderella transcriptions, too, will surely make lovers of the original long for a more balletic sense of buoyance and whimsicality. The ''Quarrel'' lacks bite and ferocity and there is little sense of feline high-jinks in ''Pas de chat''.
I know of no fully convincing recording of the complete sonatas and so my advice would be to stick with the truly great individual offerings—Pogorelich in No. 6 (DG, 11/84), Pollini in No. 7 (DG, 11/86) and Richter in No. 8 (DG, 9/88) to take three obvious examples—until more distinguished sets come along. Perhaps Hyperion could tempt Demidenko, a pianist with a keen instinct for the darker sides of romanticism.'