The last few months have brought us several new versions of Chopin's Scherzos, not forgetting one from Ivan Moravec (Dorian) of such gossamer lightness and spontaneous fancy that I even wondered if Chopin himself, amongst intimate friends, might have played these pieces in much the same way. So let me start by saying that it would be difficult to imagine anyone more different from Moravec than Pollini. Here at his most imperiously commanding he makes what might be described as a concert platform statement about the Scherzos, relishing the full dynamic resources of a modern concert grand.
The stinging intensity and drive of his response to the passionate protest of the first, the drama of the second and the challenge of the third (all of them in minor keys) makes it nonsensical to describe his playing as objective. But such is his emotional control in their more ruminative central sections, both as regards basic tempo change and rubato en route, that in comparison with what I've heard recently from both Moravec and the young Russian, Nikolai Demidenko (Hyperion), Pollini never for a moment allows us to forget Chopin's own profound respect for classical discipline—or should I say aristocratic poise. This is just as true of the nostalgic E minor 'trio' of the last Scherzo in E major. But in this work I thought Pollini just a little too deliberate in the mercurial light and joy of the opening and closing sections. The inflammable codas of all four works certainly remind us that in so far as sheer keyboard mastery is concerned, he is without peers on the concert platform today. The recording itself, made in Munich's Herkulessaal, is splendidly bright and clear, albeit a little cutting.
The rest of the disc's not over-generous playing time goes to the Berceuse and Barcarolle, in both of which Pollini allows himself rather more expressive elasticity. Again there is no mistaking his authority. But for my own part I would have preferred simpler timing in the Berceuse and a more rounded, less angular, rubato at moments of heightened fervour in the Barcarolle—a work in which I can never ever forget the one and only Lipatti.'