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Gramophone awards shortList 2015 the same time show awareness, relish even, of what the best harpsichordists have achieved, from Gustav Leonhardt to Andreas Staier (I mention two exceptional players who have made complete sets). As to other pianists, I would cite Richard Goode, on a par with Murray Perahia; maybe András Schiff as well. Levit’s version has added to the discography of this inexhaustible music with distinction and I believe it will run and run. There’s nothing about him in the booklet – as if to say, it’s not about me, the music is enough. But if you haven’t come across him before I can report that he’s of Russian-German descent (shades of Sviatoslav Richter) and is 27 this year. I wonder what he’ll do next. Stephen Plaistow (October 2014) Mahan Esfahani JS Bach Musikalisches Opfer, BWV1079 – Ricercar a 3; Ricercar a 6; Canon a 2 per tonos Byrd Clarifica me, Pater I-III. John come kiss me now. Pavan and Galliard – No 1; No 5. The Marche before the Battell. Fancie (My Ladye Nevells Book, No 41). Callino casturame. Fantasia (Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, No 52). Walsingham Ligeti Passacaglia ungherese. Continuum. Hungarian Rock Mahan Esfahani hpd Wigmore Hall Live M WHLIVE0066 (75’ • DDD) Recorded live, May 3, 2013 A critic reviewing Mahan Esfahani’s 2013 Wigmore Hall recital of short pieces by Byrd, Bach and Ligeti (from which this disc derives) felt that the programme would have been more effectively contrasted had the three Ligeti works been interspersed among the others, rather than presented in chronological sequence. Oddly enough, I received this release as randomly numbered lossless digital files and initially wrote my review assuming that that this seemingly ‘mixed and matched’ sequence was the actual running order, and a very inspired one at that. In fact, reordering strengthens the overall impact of Esfahani’s flexible, articulate and deeply musical interpretations. Try putting Ligeti’s austere, ceremonial Passacaglia ungherese before the three-part Ricercar from Bach’s Musical Offering. Similarly, the rhythmic energy of Byrd’s D minor Fantasia easily slips into the jagged disquiet of Ligeti’s Hungarian Rock, which, in turn, provides a provocative bridge into the C minor Galliard. While many performances of Ligeti’s Continuum barrel their way through the relentless dissonant tremolos, Esfahani’s steady rhythm conveys a sense of air between the notes and allows the pitches to register more fully than usual. Also note how Esfahani points up the quirky cross-rhythmic interplay and tart accidentals in Byrd’s Fantasia in A minor. The wild mood contrasts and decorative writing in Byrd’s John come kiss me now emerge with more vehemence and inner drama compared to Davitt Moroney’s relatively strait-laced recording (Hyperion). And Byrd’s Walsingham variations are enlivened by Esfahani’s animated pacing (he’s livelier than Sophie Yates on Chandos and Elizabeth Farr on Naxos), incisive fingerwork and effortless distinction between legato and detached phrasings. The full-bodied engineering conveys both instrument and venue in a natural and attractive ambient blend. Highly recommended in whatever running order you choose. Jed Distler (June 2014) ‘Dances’ Albéniz Espana, Op 165 – Tango No 2 (arr Godowsky) JS Bach Partita No 4, BWV828 Chopin Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise brillante, Op 22. Polonaise No 5, Op 44 M Gould Boogie-Woogie Etude Granados Valses poéticos Schulz-Evler Arabesques on Johann Strauss’s ‘By the Beautiful Blue Danube’ Scriabin Mazurkas, Op 3 – No 4; No 6; No 9. Valse, Op 38 Benjamin Grosvenor pf Decca F 478 5334DH (81’ • DDD) Benjamin Grosvenor’s selection, simply entitled ‘Dances’, is lovingly planned rather than random. Ranging from Bach to Morton Gould, there are subtle reminders that, even if Chopin does not follow Bach ‘as the night the day’, you still recall Chopin’s love of Bach. Early Scriabin remembers Chopin, his Mazurkas written long before he developed or regressed into an obsessive mysticism. Chopin, too, was central to Granados’s inspiration (his Escenas románticas end with a graceful bow and tribute to Chopin called ‘Spianato’). Finally, the Schulz-Evler Arabesques on The  Blue Danube, the Albeniz-Godowsky Tango and Morton Gould’s Boogie-Woogie Etude – a free blossoming into a glorious liberation. Having recently celebrated a disc largely devoted to one of Janá∂ek’s darkest utterances, it is with a spirit of uplift that I now find myself listening to performances that are carried forwards on an irresistible tide of youthful exuberance. With no need of the international competition circuit to lift or lower his career, Grosvenor bypasses that ever-controversial arena to give performance after performance of a surpassing brilliance and character. However hard the slog in the practice room (such dazzle and re-creation result from intense discipline), there is a sense of joyful release, of music-making free from all constraint. Grosvenor’s Bach (the Fourth Partita, the most substantial item on the disc) is a vivid contradiction of a quaint, long-held view that Bach was essentially an academic, once unaffectionately known as ‘the old wig’, who provided useful contrapuntal fodder for exams. Such views long ago toppled into absurdity and like, say, Schiff and Perahia (though with an entirely fresh stance of his own), Grosvenor gives us Bach, our timeless contemporary. What drama and vitality he finds as he launches the Overture, what a spring – even swagger – in his step in the Courante, what unflagging but unforced brio in the final Gigue. And then you remember his Sarabande, where his pace and energy are resolved in a ‘still small voice of calm’. Dry-as-dusts may rattle their sabres but, like Horowitz, who confounded the pundits with his crystalline Scarlatti, Grosvenor creates his own authenticity, revelling in music of an eternal ebullience and inwardness, and erasing all notion of faceless sobriety. This is followed by a wide but relevant leap to Chopin. The Op 22 Grande  Polonaise may pay tribute to Chopin’s early concert-hall glitter (his opening salvo in the Etudes, Op 10, is a reworking of Bach’s first Prelude, also in C major, from his ‘48’) but even here Chopin can reflect his cherished memories. Grosvenor keeps everything smartly on the move (he is the least sentimental of pianists), spinning the composer’s vocal line in the introductory Andante spianato with rare translucency and with decorations cascading like stardust. There is never a question of attention-seeking, of ‘what can I do with this?’. Such things have no place in Grosvenor’s lexicon and everything is as natural as breathing. Textures, too, are as light as air, after a commanding summons to the dance floor, and both here and in the more mature Op 44 Polonaise there is an almost skittish erasing of all possible opacity. Again, detail is as acute as ever, with flashing octaves complemented by a magically sensitive central Mazurka and a sinister close, suggesting a dark undertow to Chopin’s all-Polish defiance (for Schumann the Polonaises were ‘cannons buried in flowers’). 26 GRAMOPHONE AWARDS 2015 gramophone.co.uk
page 25
Gramophone awards shortList 2015 Three Scriabin Mazurkas from his Op 3 remember Chopin with their characteristic major-minor alternations, the Sixth with its gazelle-like leaps followed by the Fourth and Ninth, alive with an already distinctive voice. In Grosvenor’s hands the A flat Valse becomes one of Scriabin’s most intoxicating creations and so, too, do Granados’s Valses poéticos. And while there is nothing so specific as the abovementioned term ‘spianato’, there is still a sense of a distant relation to Chopin. Finally, the Schulz-Evler Arabesques  on The Blue Danube, once described as ‘sending fabulous spangles of sound spinning through the air’ in its introduction, followed by Grosvenor’s seemingly inborn elegance and sophistication in the waltz proper. The Albeniz-Godowsky Tango may be less sultry and insinuating than some (I have Cherkassky’s winking and teasing magic in mind) but Grosvenor’s cooler view is exquisite in its own entirely personal way. Then on to a fizzing finish in Morton Gould’s Boogie-Woogie Etude, and a headlong charge with still enough colour and variety to bring even the most staid audience to its feet. Benjamin Grosvenor may well be the most remarkable young pianist of our time. And for him, choosing from his already extensive repertoire music for future recordings will surely be a labour of love. Decca’s sound is excellent and this is a disc to prompt wonder and delight in equal measure. Bryce Morrison (September 2014) ‘The Salzburg Recital’ JS Bach Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV639 Chopin Preludes, Op 28. Mazurkas – Op 63 No 3; Op 68 No 2 Mozart Piano Sonatas – No 2, K280; No 12, K332 Rameau Les Sauvages Scriabin Deux poèmes, Op 69 Grigory Sokolov pf DG M b 479 4342GH2 (109’ • DDD) Recorded live at the Haus für Mozart, Salzburg, July 30, 2008 Good news for pianophiles everywhere that Grigory Sokolov has, as DG put it, now signed an exclusive contract. This is of course not taking him into the studio or anything as workaday as that. No, he has allowed them to release a live recital from the 2008 Salzburg Festival. But let’s not knock that: it’s difficult to imagine just how much negotiation that must have taken. Comparisons are irrelevant (except perhaps with himself): this is Sokolov we’re talking about. But in this cult of celebrity, his very aversion to the notion has turned him into one – a bit like Glenn Gould in an earlier era. Of course, all of this would be beside the point if he didn’t produce the goods. It’s an overused word, but he is inimitable. His Chopin Preludes, for example, have no time for the notion of a freely Romantic melodic line being kept in check by a Classical accompaniment. Sokolov’s reading as a whole is remarkably consistent with that of his live 1990 recital released on Opus 111. In both, he begins unhurriedly, as if the music were gently rousing itself into life. But whereas in less imaginative hands the results could seem mannered or overly drawn out, here it’s mesmerising. In the Sixth Prelude, for instance, the upward curling arpeggio has a rare poignancy, while the Tenth glistens but also has an unexpected hesitancy about it. In No 13, the glorious melody of the middle section is given with a freedom that would simply not work in a lesser musician; while in the infamous ‘Raindrop’, Sokolov replaces the constant dripping with a shifting pulse that has a real urgency, albeit an unconventional one. No 19 is a particular highlight, its delicacy quite heart-stopping. He ends as he began, with a tempo for No 24 that has gravitas (not to be confused with heaviness), the effect granitic, magisterial. The Mozart is treasurable too, though – of course – you have to take it on its own terms. What he does with the slow movement of K280, for instance, gives it a kind of operatic reach and breadth, though never does it lapse into histrionics. And in the finale he brings out the main theme’s stuttering quality superbly, lending the music not just a mercurial quality but a dramatic one too. His delight in the chewy harmonies of the opening movement of K332 is palpable, his phrasing iridescent in its range. The Salzburg audience (who are generally reasonably silent except for the tumultuous applause) were lucky enough to get six encores. The Scriabin Poèmes are more than usually clear descendants of Chopin in Sokolov’s hands and the filigree is out of this world. By contrast, Rameau’s Les Sauvages is unexpectedly playful and whimsical, and we end with a clear-sighted Bach chorale prelude that is all the more moving for its apparent simplicity. As Sokolov says in the booklet: ‘I play only what I want to play at the current moment.’ Perhaps that’s what gives this set such integrity. Harriet Smith (February 2015) Chopin Preludes – selected comparison:  Sokolov (10/01) (O111) OPS30-336 ‘La fauvette passerinette’ J Anderson Etude No 1 G Benjamin Fantasy on Iambic Rhythm Dutilleux D’ombre et de silence Messiaen Huit Préludes – No 1, La colombe. Pièce pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas. Quatre Etudes de rythme – No 1, Ile de feu I. Catalogue d’oiseaux – No 4, Le traquet stapazin. La fauvette passerinette. Morceau de lecture à vue Murail Cloches d’adieu, et un sourire…(in memoriam Olivier Messiaen) Ravel Miroirs – No 2, Oiseaux tristes Sculthorpe Night Pieces – No 5, Stars Stockhausen Klavierstücke – VII; VIII Takemitsu Rain Tree Sketch II D Young Dreamlandscapes, Book 2 – River Peter Hill pf Delphian F DCD34141 (79’ • DDD) In 2012, 20 years after Messiaen’s death, Peter Hill discovered among his sketches an 11-minute piece that might have marked the start of a second phase of work on the large-scale piano cycle Catalogue d’oiseaux. In absorbingly detailed booklet-notes, Hill explains the innovative aspects of La fauvette passerinette (1961); and even if (as I suspect) Messiaen might have refined and increased the piece’s contrasting materials in producing a definitive version, Hill’s realisation forms a rewardingly substantial centrepiece to this outstanding recital disc. The whole point is to put Messiaen himself in a stimulating context; and anyone suspecting from the playlist that this collection of compositions is too much of a miscellaneous ragbag for its own good should be as disarmed as I was by the fresh perspectives it opens up. There is enough music by Messiaen himself to ensure that his presence and impact are never forgotten, not least because he is shown here to have steered French music virtually single-handedly from refined late Romanticism into the harsher world of late modernism. The other composers selected can then be heard responding to either or both of these compositional possibilities – and the explicit links between (for example) Ravel and Takemitsu show that this is far from a simple matter of chronology. The appeal of the disc is greatly enhanced by the exceptional quality of the recording, with every facet of Hill’s uncompromisingly extensive expressive range vividly captured – and, quite rightly, there is a credit for the piano technician. Arnold Whittall (December 2014) gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE AWARDS 2015 27

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Gramophone awards shortList 2015

the same time show awareness, relish even, of what the best harpsichordists have achieved, from Gustav Leonhardt to Andreas Staier (I mention two exceptional players who have made complete sets). As to other pianists, I would cite Richard Goode, on a par with Murray Perahia; maybe András Schiff as well. Levit’s version has added to the discography of this inexhaustible music with distinction and I believe it will run and run. There’s nothing about him in the booklet – as if to say, it’s not about me, the music is enough. But if you haven’t come across him before I can report that he’s of Russian-German descent (shades of Sviatoslav Richter) and is 27 this year. I wonder what he’ll do next. Stephen Plaistow (October 2014)

Mahan Esfahani JS Bach Musikalisches Opfer, BWV1079 – Ricercar a 3; Ricercar a 6; Canon a 2 per tonos Byrd Clarifica me, Pater I-III. John come kiss me now. Pavan and Galliard – No 1; No 5. The Marche before the Battell. Fancie (My Ladye Nevells Book, No 41). Callino casturame. Fantasia (Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, No 52). Walsingham Ligeti Passacaglia ungherese. Continuum. Hungarian Rock Mahan Esfahani hpd Wigmore Hall Live M WHLIVE0066 (75’ • DDD) Recorded live, May 3, 2013

A critic reviewing Mahan Esfahani’s 2013 Wigmore Hall recital of short pieces by Byrd, Bach and Ligeti (from which this disc derives) felt that the programme would have been more effectively contrasted had the three Ligeti works been interspersed among the others, rather than presented in chronological sequence. Oddly enough, I received this release as randomly numbered lossless digital files and initially wrote my review assuming that that this seemingly ‘mixed and matched’ sequence was the actual running order, and a very inspired one at that.

In fact, reordering strengthens the overall impact of Esfahani’s flexible, articulate and deeply musical interpretations. Try putting Ligeti’s austere, ceremonial Passacaglia ungherese before the three-part Ricercar from Bach’s Musical Offering. Similarly, the rhythmic energy of Byrd’s D minor Fantasia easily slips into the jagged disquiet of Ligeti’s Hungarian Rock, which, in turn, provides a provocative bridge into the C minor Galliard. While many performances of Ligeti’s Continuum barrel their way through the relentless dissonant tremolos, Esfahani’s steady rhythm conveys a sense of air between the notes and allows the pitches to register more fully than usual. Also note how Esfahani points up the quirky cross-rhythmic interplay and tart accidentals in Byrd’s Fantasia in A minor.

The wild mood contrasts and decorative writing in Byrd’s John come kiss me now emerge with more vehemence and inner drama compared to Davitt Moroney’s relatively strait-laced recording (Hyperion). And Byrd’s Walsingham variations are enlivened by Esfahani’s animated pacing (he’s livelier than Sophie Yates on Chandos and Elizabeth Farr on Naxos), incisive fingerwork and effortless distinction between legato and detached phrasings. The full-bodied engineering conveys both instrument and venue in a natural and attractive ambient blend. Highly recommended in whatever running order you choose. Jed Distler (June 2014)

‘Dances’ Albéniz Espana, Op 165 – Tango No 2 (arr Godowsky) JS Bach Partita No 4, BWV828 Chopin Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise brillante, Op 22. Polonaise No 5, Op 44 M Gould Boogie-Woogie Etude Granados Valses poéticos Schulz-Evler Arabesques on Johann Strauss’s ‘By the Beautiful Blue Danube’ Scriabin Mazurkas, Op 3 – No 4; No 6; No 9. Valse, Op 38 Benjamin Grosvenor pf Decca F 478 5334DH (81’ • DDD)

Benjamin Grosvenor’s selection, simply entitled ‘Dances’, is lovingly planned rather than random. Ranging from Bach to Morton Gould, there are subtle reminders that, even if Chopin does not follow Bach ‘as the night the day’, you still recall Chopin’s love of Bach. Early Scriabin remembers Chopin, his Mazurkas written long before he developed or regressed into an obsessive mysticism. Chopin, too, was central to Granados’s inspiration (his Escenas románticas end with a graceful bow and tribute to Chopin called ‘Spianato’). Finally, the Schulz-Evler Arabesques on The  Blue Danube, the Albeniz-Godowsky Tango and Morton Gould’s Boogie-Woogie Etude – a free blossoming into a glorious liberation.

Having recently celebrated a disc largely devoted to one of Janá∂ek’s darkest utterances, it is with a spirit of uplift that I now find myself listening to performances that are carried forwards on an irresistible tide of youthful exuberance. With no need of the international competition circuit to lift or lower his career, Grosvenor bypasses that ever-controversial arena to give performance after performance of a surpassing brilliance and character. However hard the slog in the practice room (such dazzle and re-creation result from intense discipline), there is a sense of joyful release, of music-making free from all constraint.

Grosvenor’s Bach (the Fourth Partita, the most substantial item on the disc) is a vivid contradiction of a quaint, long-held view that Bach was essentially an academic, once unaffectionately known as ‘the old wig’, who provided useful contrapuntal fodder for exams. Such views long ago toppled into absurdity and like, say, Schiff and Perahia (though with an entirely fresh stance of his own), Grosvenor gives us Bach, our timeless contemporary. What drama and vitality he finds as he launches the Overture, what a spring – even swagger – in his step in the Courante, what unflagging but unforced brio in the final Gigue. And then you remember his Sarabande, where his pace and energy are resolved in a ‘still small voice of calm’. Dry-as-dusts may rattle their sabres but, like Horowitz, who confounded the pundits with his crystalline Scarlatti, Grosvenor creates his own authenticity, revelling in music of an eternal ebullience and inwardness, and erasing all notion of faceless sobriety.

This is followed by a wide but relevant leap to Chopin. The Op 22 Grande  Polonaise may pay tribute to Chopin’s early concert-hall glitter (his opening salvo in the Etudes, Op 10, is a reworking of Bach’s first Prelude, also in C major, from his ‘48’) but even here Chopin can reflect his cherished memories. Grosvenor keeps everything smartly on the move (he is the least sentimental of pianists), spinning the composer’s vocal line in the introductory Andante spianato with rare translucency and with decorations cascading like stardust. There is never a question of attention-seeking, of ‘what can I do with this?’. Such things have no place in Grosvenor’s lexicon and everything is as natural as breathing. Textures, too, are as light as air, after a commanding summons to the dance floor, and both here and in the more mature Op 44 Polonaise there is an almost skittish erasing of all possible opacity. Again, detail is as acute as ever, with flashing octaves complemented by a magically sensitive central Mazurka and a sinister close, suggesting a dark undertow to Chopin’s all-Polish defiance (for Schumann the Polonaises were ‘cannons buried in flowers’).

26 GRAMOPHONE AWARDS 2015

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