This is a well-chosen programme which may well appeal to collectors looking for a complement to the two Prokofiev violin sonatas; and the quality of playing and recording make it broadly recommendable as such. Had Chandos picked up the Prokofiev Melodies from a previous Lydia Mordkovitch recital (of Russian bonbons, reviewed in March 1987) the issue might have been even more desirable.
All the performances are big-hearted and well projected in the now familiar Mordkovitch manner, and some may feel that her enthusiastic embrace does not always bring out the full range of character in the music. The Prokofiev solo sonata (in fact intended for multiple violins in unison, and recorded as such on Conifer and reviewed in March 1991) sounds somewhat overblown (and I'm not sure what authority Mordkovitch has for changing notated E naturals to distinctly odd-sounding E flats at 3'32'' and 3'36'' in the last movement). Similarly I'm not sure the two-violin Sonata should spread its arms so wide with the very first phrase, though there is undoubtedly much to be said for the attack and verve of this performance. Emma Young is a well-matched partner here, as she is in the Schnittke Praeludium—one of his more restrained and well-disciplined utterances. Chandos have got the balance between clarity and richness about right, although as always the house style dictates more than average ambience.
The most substantial work is of course the Shostakovich, a real porcupine of a piece with 12-note quills wherever you try to get hold of it—by comparison the death-haunted Fourteenth Symphony (the very next opus) seems almost easy on the ear. Mordkovitch and her fine accompanist Clifford Benson could hardly be said to romanticize the Sonata; there is plenty of drive and insistence in their playing, balanced by patience and sensitivity in the long final passacaglia. But then there are Oistrakh and Richter, recorded at the first performance on May 3rd, 1969 and now available again on a bright, but not impossibly bright, CD transfer. Here is the genuine article—the almost fanatical rhythmical grasp giving us the real emotional guts of the piece. It is deeply frustrating that Le Chant du Monde/Harmonia Mundi have put it out in an expensive two-disc package, coupled with some variable performances and worse recordings of the Cello Sonata, Viola Sonata and Second Trio.'