Szymanowski’s keyboard music covers a wide range of pianistic style, and Martin Roscoe’s responsiveness to that range is finely demonstrated here. Turn from the magnificently showy gestures of the Fantasy to the almost Bartokian world of the Mazurkas and you might well imagine that he is playing two quite different instruments. And by using in the Masques some of the percussive quality that he deploys in the Mazurkas he demonstrates how much more than Gallic sensuousness tinged with exoticism they contain.
Roscoe takes an intimate view of the Mazurkas, with a narrower dynamic range than some pianists; his phrasing is by turns delicate and piquant. Much though I admire his precision and the shadings he finds within his deliberately rather restricted palette, I prefer the richer and even more subtle playing of Pavel Kamasa in his exceptionally fine recent recording of the complete set of Mazurkas. But Roscoe’s is an intelligent and absorbing alternative view of these remarkable works, and some listeners will prefer his generous coupling, especially at super-bargain price. His virtuosity is fully up to the demands of the Op. 10 Variations and his reading of Masques is finely characterized: a touch hard-edged at times, but with all the fantasy as well as the mystery needed by “Tantris le bouffon”.
The piano sound is natural and for the most part satisfyingly ample; a touch of dryness in the Mazurkas is not inappropriate to Roscoe’s reading of them.'