One gets to hear an awful lot of new recordings of the Liszt Sonata over the course of a year. Not surprising: it’s a wonderful work, one of the Everests of the literature and a great showpiece for any pianist. Not surprising, either, that few match the finest versions already available – Horowitz, Argerich, Cohen, Richter and Barere as primi inter pares. Here, though, is another to join that distinguished company. The palpable enjoyment Boris Berezovsky conveys of playing this demanding music is not the least attraction of his outstanding performance. The technical challenges are tossed off with aplomb and exhilarating tempi, every detail clearly articulated within huge, sweeping paragraphs. Liszt’s one-act drama is gripping from beginning to end in this muscular, unsentimental reading. Berezovsky’s preference for recording in front of a small invited audience pays off here and in the other three Liszt works which, by the by, remind one what an inspired melodist he was. I was going to say that this is Berezovsky’s most successful disc since his Chopin-Godowsky recital (Warner, 11/05) but that would have ignored his lovely recording of Medtner solos and songs (Mirare, 3/09). On all three, we are hearing a truly great pianist at the top of his game.

After which, it is hardly fair to compare Marylin Frascone’s disc in the same review. She is a fine pianist with a strong technique but is simply in a different league. Not helped by the studio’s bright acoustic, her strident account of the Sonata lacks Berezovsky’s range of colour, structural grasp and playful musical imagination. Her Gaspard, too, does not compete with the benchmarks (Pogorelich, Argerich, Michelangeli), “Ondine” and “Scarbo” sounding more like études than tone-poems, though “Le gibet” is atmospherically drawn. Too often, especially in “Ondine”, Frascone finds it difficult to grade piano and forte dynamics as Ravel directs. The English translation of the CD’s French booklet is a classic of its kind, not only inaccurate (eg “Gaspard de la nuit was composed in the Salle Érard, in Paris, on January 9, 1909”) but hopelessly ungrammatical. I hope the thoughtfully provided Japanese translation is better.