I have admired Gordon Fergus-Thompson's playing since I first heard him in a broadcast some six years ago. Then he was playing Ravel, and both in that composer and in Debussy he showed a rare combination of finesse and spontaneity; he has already successfully recorded a complete Debussy series for ASV and I'm glad to learn that a similar Ravel set is now awaiting issue. However, his first recordings (for Kingdom) were of Russian music and not least Rachmaninov's two sonatas: very fine they were too, for he responds fully to that composer's world of grand aristocratic romanticism and contemplative melancholy and has the technique to do it justice.
The Etudes-tableaux bear the same relationship to the preludes as the Third Piano Concerto does to the Second: they are longer, subtler and especially rewarding in that they go deeper both emotionally and pianistically. But they are still not well-known, and the composer himself recorded only four of these 17 pieces divided between Op. 33 and Op. 39. One of them was the rapid A minor (Op. 39 No. 6) which has been likened to the story of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf and which startlingly anticipates Prokofiev in its mood, harmonies and keyboard writing. Fergus-Thompson takes it fast but remains in control, and while the central crescendo-accelerando is thrilling he also distils the right kind of whispering mystery in this disturbing piece. Indeed, I have only praise for these performances, admiring in Op. 33 the flowing and singing quality of the C major (No. 2), the Presto fleetness of the E flat minor, the bounce of the marchlike but wholly Russian E flat major and the no less Russian pastoral melancholy of the G minor. Fergus-Thompson also conveys the imposing grandeur of the last piece in this set, and does so no less in the even bigger C minor, Op. 39 No. 7, which lasts nearly eight minutes and includes a passage with madly clangorous bells. The lengthy and impressionistic piece in A minor, Op. 39 No. 2, is wonderfully sad and atmospheric, and the most obviously romantic piece of all (the E flat minor of this second set, which is also the best known) has nobility and eloquence. The recording is rich and spacious, though ideally the whirling right hand of Op. 39 No. 1 could have had a little more treble brilliance.'