Sergei PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
Piano Sonata No.2, Op.14 [18:08]
Visions Fugitives, Op.22: No.1 [1:14]; No.3 [0:55]; No.4 [0:54]; No.7 [1:52];
No.10 [0:46]; No.6 [0:35]; No.11 [1:07]; No.17 [1:14]; No.5 [0:34]
Ten Pieces from Romeo and Juliet, op.75: No.4 Juliet as a young girl [3:32];
No.6 Montagues and Capulets [3:26]; No.8 Mercutio [2:16]; No.10 Romeo and
Juliet before parting [7:06]
Piano Sonata No.7 in B flat, Op.83 [17:34]
Sergei Dukachev (piano)
rec. live: August 28, 2005, Whiteley Hall, Chetham’s School of Music, Manchester,
UK (Sonata 2); January 26, 2000 (Visions Fugitives) & July 18, 2001 (Sonata
7), The Picture Gallery, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK; February
16, 2002, The Maidment Building Auditorium, The Music School, Shrewsbury,
UK (Romeo and Juliet).
All tracks previously released on the Dunelm label
Russian Piano Music Volume 7
DIVINE ART DDA25096 [61:42]
It seems appropriate that Prokofiev wrote some of his finest and most varied
music for his own instrument, the piano. Prokofiev left a handful of recordings
of his own playing for posterity, setting a high standard for those wanting
to follow in his footsteps and tackle this remarkable oeuvre. That bar was
maintained by two of Prokofiev’s pianist colleagues, Emil Gilels and Sviatoslav
Richter, so that anyone attempting this repertoire is stepping into a mighty
tradition. This volume continues Divine Art’s survey of an even grander tradition:
the hi-ways and by-ways of Russian piano music.
Divine Art’s Prokofiev compilation begins with the Second Piano Sonata of
1912, the most substantial among the first five. It’s a case of serving the
best first in Dukachev’s case, as this performance is the most secure on the
disc with only the final Vivace suffering from a few blemishes. The
Andante is successful, with Dukachev building the tension effectively
throughout.
Only a few notes into his selection from the Visions Fugitives, however,
and alarm bells ring. Dukachev misses a chord in the left hand of No.1, leading
to a bar or so of mismatched left and right hands. It sounds so deliberate
that I questioned my own edition of the score, but checking the original Russian
print confirms that it must be a mistake on Dukachev’s part. It turns out
that these are live recordings, taken from a number of different concerts;
not that you’d know from the back of the box. So, a memory slip could be forgiven
- it’s certainly happened to the very best in the past – but who is going
to want to listen to this mistake again and again?
Armed with the knowledge that these are live recordings - only confirmed inside
the booklet - the lack of audience noise throughout - save for the end of
the 7th Sonata, which includes applause - is a relief. The disc’s live status
goes some way to explain Dukachev’s untidy finger-work in the faster passages
of the Op.22 selections. All pianists make mistakes in concert, but these
performances aren’t persuasive enough in their own terms to warrant anyone
returning to them and hearing those mistakes again.
Four of Prokofiev’s Ten Pieces from Romeo and Juliet suffer from the
same issues, though they confirm that Dukachev is at least good at dreamy
atmosphere, such as that conjured for the beginning of Romeo and Juliet
before parting. The Seventh Sonata, one of Prokofiev’s fiercest works
in any genre, is given a reasonable performance which impresses mostly in
the shell-shocked second movement Andante coloroso, but the Precipitato
finale is disappointingly underpowered.
Across the entire disc, there is the added problem of poor sound, which varies
quite noticeably between pieces but which is always consistently bad. It would
have been poor by the standards of four decades ago; the fact that all of
these recordings were taped during or after 2000 makes the situation particularly
unforgivable. I’m inclined to give Dukachev the benefit of the doubt in some
cases of muddy playing, as the acoustic and production can only have made
the problems worse than they might have seemed at the time of the performances.
But the sound problems are enough on their own for me to direct anyone interested
in sampling Prokofiev’s wonderful piano music elsewhere, such as to Bernd
Glemser’s three budget priced discs of Prokofiev’s complete piano sonatas
(including the Romeo and Juliet pieces) on Naxos (8.553021; 8.554270;
8.555030), at the very least.
Andrew Morris
Follow Andrew’s string music blog at http://devilstrillblog.blogspot.com/
A good selection of Prokofiev’s remarkable piano music, but scrappy performances
and poor production make this uncompetitive.