Critics are not paid to be lost for words. But then human beings are not supposed to be able to play the piano like Pollini. His recording of Petrushka, already legendary, goes so far into the realms of the uncanny as to beggar description; one fears almost for the safety of his soul. Poor Geoffrey Saba on Pickwick. He gets round the notes more competently than Cherkassky (on an LP for ASV), and has plenty of his own ideas (even if these often lead him into unidiomatic rubato). But all in vain, since his best efforts only suggest Pollini gently warming up with cold fingers.
That's a quarter of this new CD—it puts together the contents of two full LP issues, with only faint background swish to hint at its origins. Is the rest any less remarkable? Perhaps infinitesimally so in the case of the Prokofiev sonata: at least the sheer velocity of Pollini's first movement is not the most obvious way to project its inquieto state of mind and might even be thought to pre-empt the precipitato finale. But no. Hearing the performance as a whole it is remarkable how Pollini brings out the desolation behind its propulsiveness, the chill behind its warmth, and all with coruscating pianistic flair.
Halfway there. On to the Webern Variations and another performance of the most phenomenal precision and acute expressive poise, every note precisely weighted, coloured, above all felt.
That already makes an overwhelming concentration of marvels. But I hope listeners will not programme out the last four tracks. Fifteen years ago I would have doubted the sanity of anyone professing admiration for the Boulez Second Sonata. The appearance of Pollini's LP knocked a big chunk out of that arrogance, and re-acquaintance with it now has swept most of the rest away. Full identification with its processes is still to come for me (especially in the long slow second movement) and I still think that the Third Sonata, where colour and register are so much more active and the processes so esoteric as to be practically non-functional, is closer to the essential Boulez. But abandoning oneself to the sweep of Pollini's virtuosity, I cannot believe that the fierce purity of this titanic anti-sonata will leave many listeners indifferent. Certainly it is a far more controlled work and a far more involving one than the Xenakis I have recently been listening to (see page 732).
Transcendental is not a word I recall having used in a review before now. It is a description which by no means flatters Pollini's achievement on this record.'