Pianist Margaret Wacyk has studied widely - completing her studies
at Juilliard - and also composes. She made her NYC concert debut
in Carnegie Recital Hall in 2000 and has released two records
on Roméo. This then is her third solo disc and it enshrines
the idea of a ‘journey’ - a loose concept that allows
her to take in some canonic repertoire and get to grips with
it.
The most startling performance is that of
Les Adieux about
which she clearly feels deeply and over which she has equally
obviously pondered with considered attention. She has emerged
with a performance that, obviously, hardly seeks to emulate Gouldian
guerrilla attacks but that proposes its own highly dogmatic solution.
It is, I think, amongst the slowest traversals I’ve heard
of the sonata. I am not sure whether the attempt is to inflate
it but its deliberation and retardation are worlds away from
the sparing lightness of Kempff or of a contemporary such as
Craig Sheppard whose directional surety is cut from a different
cloth. There’s a rather obvious edit at 3:09 in the second
movement but more concerning is the sense that the sonata never
takes wing; the finale has a heavy action and hardly enshrines
anything corresponding to the
Presstissimo instruction.
It’s certainly an uncompromising view, maintained throughout,
and seen from beginning to end with unwavering confidence in
the didacticism of its conception.
I have similar reservations concerning the two Chopin pieces.
There’s a lack of continuity and narrative drive in the
F minor Ballade. It lacks a sense of, for want of a better word,
smoothness and I think also lacks a sense of conception; there’s
a certain lumpiness to it. There sounds like another edit at
2:23 in Schumann’s Toccata which disrupts things rhythmically
for a brief moment; otherwise it stands at a slightly unconvincing
tangent to the music. The Bach-Liszt Organ Prelude and Fugue
actually opens the programme in sonorous grandeur. Here we have
a sense of grandeur and dynamism as well as a refined approach
to dynamics and tonal colour that shows what this pianist is
capable of. The refined voicing of the Fugue is impressive indeed
and her powerful bass - a bit too much so in truth for the recording
to cope with - registers with patrician authority. By far the
most impressive performance this is the kind of thing one should
look forward to in her next recording. A disc that satellites
around Bach-Liszt, Bach-Busoni and, say, Bach-Siloti, might seem
all too run of the mill these days, but I think Wacyk could do
justice to it and I hope it’s suggested to her.
Jonathan Woolf
Margaret Wacyk (piano) 
