Karol SZYMANOWSKI (1882-1937)
The Three Piano Sonatas
Piano Sonata No.1 in C minor Op.8 (1904) [34:34]
Piano Sonata No.2 in A major Op.21 (1911) [29:14]
Piano Sonata No.3 Op.36 (1917) [21:01]
Gajusz Kęska (piano)
rec. 2008/2009 Concert Hall of the Music Academy in Cracow
DUX 0893-94 [34:34 + 50:17]
Dux has issued all three Szymanowski piano sonatas in one twofer, and there’s
the rub. It seems hard on the performer to begin with commercial considerations,
but because of the split between the discs the total timing is 84 minutes.
I’d hoped that Dux would have reflected that this is really one CD’s
worth (give or take four minutes) by reducing the price bracket, but having
checked I see that they haven’t and that this is selling as a full price
double. I would hope they reconsider. The performances are good, but the cost
will deter many from acquiring this release, especially as the First Sonata
is an early, rather uncharacteristic work, and potential purchasers will waive
the opportunity to hear it.
As I said, the performances of Gajusz Kęska are good. In Szymanowski’s
greatest sonata, the Third, he is not as arresting as his fellow Pole, Anderszewski,
on Virgin Classics. Nor is he quite as consistently accomplished as Martin
Jones in his extensive trawl through the composer’s works; though Jones’s
sonata performances come in the context of a 4 CD Nimbus set, so I’m
not sure that necessarily advances things much, unless you want to collar
the lot in one go.
So, whilst Kęska is not as glitteringly colouristic as Anderszewski,
nor as probing of the music’s impressionist moments, his slightly more
measured approach brings its own rewards. Less vertical in his responses,
and cooler, he nevertheless evinces fine rubati and ensures that the music’s
artful but ceaseless flow is well conveyed. Its rigour and strenuous appeal
is not universally admired, but to those responsive, Anderszewski’s
elucidation of the Third Sonata’s tauter moments, and its fugal ones
too, will come as welcome evidence of the music’s sheer profusion and
cleverness of invention. One gets a good sense of the manifold thickets as
well as the textual and metrical problems encountered;, though, with Kęska
and also the sense that he has coursed them with intelligence.
I sense even more identification with the Second sonata, whose late romantic
moments, and heroic chording especially, bring out the bravura in Kęska.
He works towards the climaxes splendidly, and vests the unsettled second movement
with a sense of benevolence. One thing to which I think he is especially drawn
is the Lisztian element embedded in Szymanowski’s music, because he
responds to it with alacrity and power. So, too, the rather undigested fugal
feint here, which is not nearly as suavely embedded in this work as it was
to become in the 1917 Third sonata.
The First Sonata was written in 1904. It’s predicated structurally on
Chopinesque grounds, though it exudes Lisztian eruptions and in the slow movement
one encounters a distinctly Beethovenian sound world. These influences, not
yet fully rationalised, and certainly not expressively integrated, do however
reveal something important about his musical development. The dappled lightness
of the finale, with some harp-like harmonies, show an obvious debt to impressionism,
but also point the way forward to his more mature writing.
So, this release does usefully capture, in good sound, the pianistic Szymanowski
in sonata frame of mind. But, I must return to my first paragraph and hope
that Dux reconsiders its pricing structure.
Jonathan Woolf
Usefully captures, in good sound, the pianistic Szymanowski in sonata mode.
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