Finlandia's two-disc album is issued in memory of Steven de Groote, the South African pianist who died at the tragically early age of 36. Following a controversial first prize victory over Russia's Alexander Toradze at the 1977 Van Cliburn Competition de Groote achieved an international celebrity which mixed uneasily with his essentially introspective nature. However, as these records amply show, he was a formidably assured virtuoso notably attuned to Prokofiev's romantic satire. His rhythm and attack in ''Juliet as a young girl'' (here rightly presented as a lady who knows her own mind), ''Masks'' and ''Mercutio'' are razor-sharp. Yet ''Friar Laurence'', too, makes a no less remarkable plea for stillness and moderation. All these performances are more artful and cunning than Gavrilov's in his EMI recording (7/80—nla), bolder and more subtle than the nimble and affectionate Cristina Ortiz (also on EMI—nla). Again, in the Eighth Sonata de Groote makes unusual sense of a first movement which can so easily turn into an astral stroll and his explosive brilliance in the closing pages, in Prokofiev's inquieto and con brio, is truly hair-raising. His Andante sogando is fractionally too slow for its faux naive charm to tell and his heavy start to the finale is neither piano nor vivace as marked. The final pages, on the other hand, with their suggestion of the last trump, are set ablaze with a truly demonic flair.
In the early Beethoven sonata de Groote relishes many ebullient breaks with convention (Beethoven's fortissimo/piano direction at 5'00'' is given with a droll and amusing emphasis) and the Scherzo is delightfully skittish. The central staccato storm in the finale, too, is attacked with dazzling ferocity and the final decorative accents which embellish the principal theme flash with rare articulacy. This leaves the Waldstein, which commences in a surprisingly subdued style, almost as if the pianist was emphasizing the greater breadth and substance of Beethoven's middle period. But although distinguished and absorbing in so many ways, this performance is also oddly mannered with an affected shrink from the composers's forte-pianissimo contrast at 7'48'' and a tendency to sap the music's natural energy with so much self-conscious point-making.
Sadly it must remain a moot issue whether de Groote's performances of such well-tried classics would have become less clinically detached (an impression admittedly aggravated by Finlandia's pinched and shallow recording) and achieved a greater expansiveness and genuine poetry. None the less de Groote was clearly a major talent and his many admirers will want to have this set, as well as an earlier and long-deleted Beethoven and Schumann record in DG's Concours series.
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