Neither new issue of the B minor Sonata can be ranked with the listed comparisons, nor indeed very close to them. Elisabeth Leonskaja offers a solid middle-of-the-road account without any conspicuous depth of insight; her articulation and tonal control are not impeccable and she over-pedals to compensate for missing resources of power. Nikolai Posnjakow is more overtly rhetorical and full-blooded; but after the first forte he has practically nothing more to give, except unpleasant stridency and over-projection. His shouting in the later stages will not bear close scrutiny; nor will the tuning of the piano by the time he has finished with it (Leonskaja's instrument, by contrast, is not perfectly in tune in the first place—especially disturbing in quiet sustained harmonies, as around 12'30'' and 19–20'00''). The choice remains between Brendel on Philips for intensity and structural awareness (and occasional technical imprecision), Feltsman on CBS for beauty of texture and polished virtuosity (and occasional disruptive mannerisms), Donohoe on EMI for sweeping continuity in long paragraphs (and occasional plainness of tone), and Richter's live performance on Philips for passionate urgency and sense of occasion (and primitive recording).
Leonskaja's Petrarch Sonnets are again not ideally refined, but they are warm-hearted and impetuous in a way not unsuited to the moods of the original poems. The Dante Sonata is the undoubted highlight of her recital. It doesn't quite have the high drama of an unequivocally great performance, but it does capture something of the volcanic, possessed quality essential to the demonic Liszt. The fact that loud passages sound actually rather frightening and soft ones regretful means that she has broken through the communication barrier in a way not often found in recorded interpretations of this work.
Posnjakow offers Prokofiev's Eighth, another favourite calling-card for Russian virtuosos. There is some remarkable playing here, especially when the first allegro moderato takes off with the devil snapping at its heels. Whether there is much by way of a controlling vision behind the pianistic fireworks I would doubt, though. This is Prokofiev at his darkest and most searching. Posnjakow glosses over the deep-seated anguish of the music with too many conventionally romantic swells, and in fast passages he is forced to slam on the breaks periodically, giving a disjointed effect to the structure. The slow movement is not done any favours by his many agogic exaggerations, and the finale, though launched with splendid vitality, soon gives way to clamorous technical overkill, with the pained reminiscence of the first movement going for less than it should. Clearly this is no match for a recording of the calibre of DG's Richter.'