Domenico SCARLATTI
(1685-1757)
Sonata in E, K.162 [05:05]
Luigi BOCCHERINI
(1743-1805) arr.
Szokolay
Minuet in A [03:38]
Franz SCHUBERT
(1797-1828) arr.
Szokolay
Marche Militaire in D [04:47]
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN
(1770-1827)
Bagatelle in A minor – "Für
Elise" [03:02]
Robert SCHUMANN
(1810-1856)
Album für die Jugend op. 68: 28.
Erinnerung [01:48], 12. Knecht
Ruprecht [01:41]
Felix MENDELSSOHN
(1809-1847)
Song without Words in F sharp minor
op. 30/6 – "Venetian Gondola Song"
[03:04]
Edvard GRIEG
(1843-1907)
Lyric Pieces, op. 65: 6. Wedding
Day at Troldhaugen [05:26]
Maurice RAVEL
(1875-1937)
Pavane pour une infante défunte
[05:17]
Johann and Josef
STRAUSS (1825-1899/1827-1870)
Pizzicato-Polka [02:15]
François-Joseph
GOSSEC (1734-1829), arr.
Théodore de Lajarte
Gavotte "Rosine" in D major
[02:42]
Franz LEHÁR
(1870-1848) arr.
Szokolay
The Merry Widow: Vilja Song [04:27]
Claude DEBUSSY
(1862-1918)
Arabesque no. 2 [02:56]
Richard STRAUSS
(1864-1949) arr.
Walter Gieseking
Serenade [02:25]
Frédéric
CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Nocturne in E flat op. 9 no. 2 [03:57]
Leon JESSEL (1871-1942)
Parade of the Tin Soldiers op. 123 [02:48]
Piotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY
(1840-1893)
Romance in F minor op. 5 [05:36]
Gustave LANGE
(1820-1869)
Der kleine Postillon op. 171/6 [03:41]
Balász Szokolay
was born in Budapest of musical parents
in 1961. His teachers included Pál
Kadosa, Zoltán Kocsis and György
Kurtág. Later he travelled abroad
to study with Ludwig Hoffmann and Yvonne
Lefébure. He made his Royal Festival
Hall début in 1987 and came fourth
at Leeds in 1990. As a recording artist,
both soloist and ensemble player, he
has been particularly active for Naxos
but has also set down rarer music for
Qualiton, including works by his father
Sándor Szokolay. He has recorded
quite a bit of Scarlatti for Naxos –
some of which got stolen by the Hattos
– and a much praised disc of Grieg,
as well as the considerable series of
"Romantic Piano Favourites",
two volumes of which provided the Royston
pair with their Debussy Arabesques.
In spite of the title,
I find Szokolay most attractive in the
non-Romantic items. His Scarlatti
is delightfully crisp and, insofar
as it is desirable to play the Boccherini
Minuet on the piano at all, it is
most charmingly done. The Schubert
Marche Militaire has splendid swagger
while the ubiquitous Für Elise
is given an unhurried lilt which young
players might profitably take as a model.
On the other hand,
Erinnerung and the richly poetic
Gondola Song are sympathetic
but a shade perfunctory. As we hear
again in the Gossec, Jessel
and Lange tit-bits, Szokolay’s
strong point is his infectious sense
of rhythm, while the Chopin and
Tchaikovsky confirm that he can
be rather ordinary where real romanticism
is called for.
The truth is that records
of this sort are not normally sent to
reviewers – and in fact this one wasn’t,
I obtained it because of the Hatto connection.
It will very likely go down a treat
with people who would find criticism
such as I’m writing now quite over their
heads. They’ll get a charming hour-or-so
of tuneful music very nicely played
and should be well satisfied.
The piano fancier,
if he’s going to hear things like the
Boccherini Minuet, the Pizzicato-Polka
and Hanna Glawari’s evergreen solo
from the Merry Widow played on
the piano, would expect the sort of
sleight of hand, naughty rubato and
faintly outrageous transcription with
which an artist like Ignaz Friedman
or, more recently, Cherkassky, could
justify what he was doing. The golden-agers
could provide an experience in this
music that had an independent life of
its own, one which was not just a poor
cousin of the orchestral version. Walter
Gieseking’s Richard Strauss arrangement
gives a glimpse of the sort of personal
touch that is missing from Szokolay’s
own more literal transcriptions, but
here we miss the sort of magic timing
the master himself might have brought
to it, nicely though the lines are drawn.
Maybe the discs should
have been the accompaniment to a series
of sheet-music albums of mostly medium-to-higher-grade
piano pieces, with the records popped
in as an example of how to play the
music. By shopping around the budding
pianist will find more individual versions
of most of the items here, but greater
pianists have a way of inflecting their
performances in such a way as to be
dangerous models. Szokolay will provide
the student with a collection of good
examples, with a level of achievement
which is – and if this sounds like damning
with faint praise, I suppose it is –
not impossibly beyond that to which
the student might reasonably aspire
himself.
But is this really
enough? The student may never learn
to liberate the melody of the Chopin
Nocturne, to float it above a seemingly
independent accompaniment the way Rubinstein
and others could, but is it not better
that he approaches the piece knowing
that such things are humanly possible?
Take the Tchaikovsky Romance,
too. In the reprise, the composer adds
a delicate counter-melody. One can just
imagine him orchestrating it as a duet
between oboe and bassoon. A Richter
could make it sound like that on the
piano. Szokolay can’t. His counter-melody
does not have independent life. The
student will probably do no better.
Yet, if he does not approach the piece
with an awareness of what expression
can be extracted from it, would he want
to play it at all?
The Debussy Arabesque
is among the disc’s successes, but I’ll
deal with this and the Hattification
aspects at the end of my review
of Vol. 9, which contains the other
Arabesque. I’ve probably written more
than enough since, if you’re the sort
of person at whom this disc is aimed,
I don’t think you’ll be reading this
review.
Christopher Howell
Balász Szokolay (piano) 
