Having declared with cautious confidence in my review of James Tocco's recital, for Kingdom/Conifer, last year that ''MacDowell probably was best as a miniaturist'', I can now put that declaration to the test—but only to a limited extent. None of the 12 Virtuoso Etudes exceeds three-and-a-bit minutes in length, but they tend—as the title suggests—to be public display pieces, small in size but flamboyant in manner, and the more intimate studies are the least effective.
To call a piece ''Traumerei'', as MacDowell does his ninth study, suggests an almost naive self-confidence, but it is the naivety that is most evident in the music: this is a very prim piece when compared to Schumann's, a dream without mystery. Movements with titles like ''Wilde Jagd'' and ''Marzwind'' have more muscle, and offer quasi-Lisztian opportunities for digital dexterity which are well taken here by Charles Fierro. He plays with an attractive variety of touch, and the studies are well-shaped and deftly executed.
I also admired Fierro's performance of the Eroica Sonata, which is by far the best of the three MacDowell sonatas included by Tocco on his disc. Fierro's approach in the outer movements is more expansive than Tocco's, and while there is less vehemence in Fierro's reading of the finale, marked ''Fiercely, very fast'', his greater breadth brings greater depth, especially in the concluding pages, where something of the 'nobility' asked for in the first movement needs to be recaptured. Fierro has a wider range of expression throughout: in the brief scherzo, for example, he brings a tenderness to the contrasting material which is lacking in Tocco's more matter-of-fact account.
The sound of the two discs is also very different, and neither is ideal. Tocco's digital recording has the clearer definition, but there is an almost clattery dryness to his playing that fits his less 'poetic' interpretations but is not always kind to the music. Fierro's analogue sound is less clearly focused, tending to favour a weighty bass. Given the delicacy of Fierro's fingerwork, this quality is less damaging than it might be, although it does leave you wondering how accurately what we hear reflects how he played.'