MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW
Plain text for smartphones & printers


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

Support us financially by purchasing this disc from
Sergei PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
Four Etudes, Op. 2 [11:01]
Four Pieces, Op. 3 [5:10]
Four Pieces, Op. 32 [10:14]
Sonata No. 10 in E minor, Op. 137 (fragment) [1:08]
Two Sonatinas, Op. 54 [19:34]
Sonata No. 5 in C, Op. 135 (revised 1952-3) [15:38]
DongKyu Kim, piano
rec. 19-20 April 2012, Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth, UK
NAXOS 8.572826 [62:45]

I’d wager there is room for this album in any Prokofiev collection. The four etudes, Op 2, and four pieces, Op 3, are products of the teenage composer, and recorded by almost nobody, which can also be said of the sonatinas and a fragmentary sketch to the unfinished tenth sonata. Most sonata cycles (Raekallio, McDermott) don’t include these pieces, so unless you have traversals of the complete piano music by Oleg Marshev or Boris Berman, this CD will fill a gap.
 
The early pieces are not necessarily essential, but they do show how quickly and eagerly young Prokofiev began defying his teachers and charging toward his adult style. The etudes are hard-charging affairs with rhythmic punch; the more laid-back but still harmonically spicy Pieces are either given descriptive names like “Tale” and “Jest” or dance titles like “Gavotte”.
 
Ironically, the last music he ever wrote - the fragment of a planned tenth piano sonata - is more old-fashioned: halfway through we meet the second melody, a plaintive, expansive lyric which seems to end with its fingers outstretched. The two sonatinas are fully mature works from the early 1930s, which makes their neglect peculiar. Like Beethoven’s mid-period “sonatinas” (sonatas 19 and 20), they’re less than ten minutes each and scaled down but worthy of attention; the E minor sonatina has a dark lyricism that I enjoyed.
 
Kim’s recital ends with the Sonata No. 5, but in its very late revised edition, with a deceptive neoclassical simplicity, clarity, and dark undertone that brings to mind the Seventh Symphony. His playing throughout is impressive: the technical demands are handled with aplomb (and in many of these works, the demands are considerable), and while it’s easy to imagine a more poetic touch in some parts of the sonata, there’s certainly nothing mechanical or rote about anything here. This is a very useful supplement to anyone’s Prokofiev collection, and the fact that it’s so well-played and well-recorded makes it all the more valuable.
 
Brian Reinhart