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Gramophone Awards Shortlist 2016 much for the Lyric Pieces in this country before anyone bothered with them greatly. The wonders of YouTube had me hooked on sampling the composer’s own piano rolls as well as some delectable examples of Sviatoslav Richter. Stephen Hough is up there with the best; may we never take his excellence for granted. In weight of expression he is often lighter than the great Russians, Gilels making all 20 that he plays so personal whereas Hough’s detachment – it’s a small thing – is also telling in its way, the detail and overview consistently in balance. His virtuosity, polish, control of nuance and a huge range of dynamics are lovely to have. The piano is a Yamaha, for a change, a high-end product which sometimes shouted a bit, I thought, in fortissimo, and it’s a fine recording made just a year ago at St George’s, Brandon Hill. Stephen Plaistow Ravel Complete Works for Solo Piano Bertrand Chamayou pf Erato S b 2564 60268-1 (137’ • DDD) Bertrand Chamayou from Toulouse has been called a prince of pianists, a hyperbolic claim, some might argue, for a musician still in his early thirties. Yet his galvanic Liszt E flat Concerto was the first using historical instruments (Ambroisie, 11/12), his Années de pèlerinage is among a handful of the finest on record (Naïve, 3/12), and both were preceded in 2006 by a stunning set of Transcendental Etudes (Vogue). His disc of Mendelssohn’s solo music is the most compelling in recent memory (Naïve, 10/08), while recordings of Schubert (Erato, 5/14) and Franck (Naïve, 9/10) are as distinctive as his collaboration with cellist Sol Gabetta in Chopin (Sony Clasical, 6/15). Up until now, however, Chamayou has recorded little of those mainstays of French pianists, Ravel and Debussy. I, for one, had no idea what was in store. Here, in some of the 20th century’s most familiar and beloved piano music, are revelatory performances of breathtaking beauty and incomparable power. Most striking, perhaps, is their unforced naturalness. Never waylaid by wealth of detail and opulent texture, Ravel’s harmonic movement is given singularity of purpose. Everything flows with the inevitability of speech, precisely articulated, direct and unmistakably sincere. Pedal is used with the utmost tact, enveloping appropriate passages in a shimmering aura that serves to heighten contour and colour. At the root of each piece is infallible rhythm, from whence branch and flower lilting pulses and a living, breathing rubato. The large sets, Miroirs, Valses nobles et sentimentales, Gaspard de la nuit and Le tombeau de Couperin, dazzle in their variety and originality of concept and execution. They can also be unsettling. In Miroirs, to have been tossed about on waves in the brilliant sunlight and, still damp with ocean spray, to encounter a serenade by a jester whom you thought you knew but who turns out to be someone else entirely, only to end up in a misty valley with sound of distant bells emanating from seemingly every direction, is disconcerting. It’s also viscerally thrilling. In the Valses, the kinaesthetic intoxication of the ball is palpable, until you begin to feel that it’s all been a dream. The water pieces, Jeux d’eau, ‘Ondine’ and ‘Une barque sur l’océan’, are imbued with character as distinct from one another as the pools of Caillebotte, the ponds of Monet or the seas of Turner. This is accomplished with that calibre of virtuosity that leaves one unaware of anything but the music. The canonic works are rounded out by Siloti’s effective transcription of ‘Kaddisch’ from the Two Hebrew Melodies (1914) and Alfredo Casella’s A la manière de Ravel. Superlative Ravel seems almost in abundance these days – think Bavouzet, Thibaudet, Queffélec or Lortie. But for my ears, Chamayou brings everything home in a way that is deeply personal, vivid, unique. No one who loves French music or exquisite piano-playing will want to miss this. Patrick Rucker Ysaÿe Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op 27 Alina Ibragimova vn Hyperion F CDA67993 (68’ • DDD) Alina Ibragimova has made many fine recordings in recent years, but this solo Ysaÿe disc must count as one of her most memorable achievements. She gives full value to the sonatas’ varied expressive character, their virtuosity, and the imaginative and poetic way Ysaÿe wrote for his instrument. And she makes the music sound quite beautiful: we never feel the medium of unaccompanied violin is at all limiting; the sonatas speak to us unimpeded, without any sense of strain. Ysaÿe composed the set in 1924, when his illustrious performing career was almost over. He dedicated each of the six to a different colleague among the fraternity of violinists, and we can follow their characteristics through the set – the First Sonata for Joseph Szigeti substantial and serious, and reflecting his prowess as a Bach interpreter; the Third Sonata commemorating the free, romantic style of Enescu, the Sixth Manuel Quiroga’s Spanish heritage, and so on. Ysaÿe sought in all six works to merge the Baroque tradition of solo violin-writing exemplified by Bach with the virtuoso styles of Paganini and Ernst, plus newer ways of writing of his own, leaning towards Impressionism. At the start of the First Sonata (track 1) we notice Ibragimova’s deliberate, serious approach, characterised by strong dynamic contrasts and a powerful sense of line. The playing here communicates deep emotional involvement; and she’s equally successful in putting over the graceful, amabile character of the contrasting third movement (tr 3). The Second Sonata, dedicated to Ysaÿe’s close friend Jacques Thibaud, might appear to contradict what we know of the latter’s easy-going nature and graceful playing, suggesting a darker side. The initial skittish quotation from Bach’s Third Partita for Solo Violin is set against obsessive repetitions of the ‘Dies irae’ chant, which continue throughout the sonata. Ibragimova is equally at home in the gentle, muted, melancholic second movement (tr 6) and the finale, ‘Les Furies’, which she attacks with extraordinary gusto (tr 8). Especially memorable here is the reintroduction of ‘Dies irae’ as a barely audible sul ponticello whisper (1’10”), contrasting with fiercely dissonant arpeggios. With the single-movement Third Sonata, she draws a convincing distinction between the opening in recitative style, done very freely and as though improvised, and the main theme, held at a firm tempo. As the sonata nears its final climax (tr 9, 7’01”), there’s a sense of throwing caution to the wind, accomplished without any loss of tonal quality. The Fourth Sonata is dedicated to Fritz Kreisler, with more Bachian echoes, as well as a nod to Kreisler’s interest in reviving – or composing in imitation of – more obscure 18th-century composers, with movements entitled Allemande and Sarabande. The first of these has an extremely slow tempo marking, which Ibragimova treats with freedom, allowing the movement’s different facets to come together to make a satisfying narrative. And in the moto perpetuo finale she makes full use of the varied bow strokes indicated (a 28 GRAMOPHONE AWARDS 2016 gramophone.co.uk
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Gramophone Awards Shortlist 2016 tribute to Kreisler?), building up once more a cumulative sense of excitement towards the conclusion. The Fifth Sonata is dedicated to Ysaÿe’s longtime friend and colleague Mathieu Crickboom. Its opening movement, ‘L’aurore’, is an Impressionistic depiction of dawn breaking, which allows Ibragimova to display a fantastic array of the quietest tone colours. She brings infectious rhythmic vitality to the ‘Danse rustique’ that follows. As well as its Spanish idiom, the Sixth Sonata most clearly shows Ysaÿe as the heir to the great 19th-century virtuoso tradition – he had, after all, been a pupil of Wieniawski and Vieuxtemps. If we think of Ibragimova as a thoughtful, even scholarly player, here she proves herself adept at all the frequent showy tricks. Ysaÿe had a deeper purpose, of course: this piece’s sparkling surface is designed to portray an ardent character, full of extravagant gestures. And not only do the difficulties hold no terrors for Ibragimova, she also, as throughout the disc, gives a strong impression of having fun playing the music. It seems very sad that none of the dedicatees of the Ysaÿe Sonatas made recordings of them. It may be that though Ysaÿe the great performer and teacher was revered, his compositions were not considered to be significant – it’s only in recent years that a handful of remarkable late chamber works have been unearthed and played. Whatever the reason, the Op 27 sonatas were virtually ignored until the LP era, and then it was individual works, most commonly No 3, that appeared on disc – with fine accounts by Oistrakh, Grumiaux, Rabin and Odnoposoff. Then came the first recordings of the whole set, by Ruggiero Ricci and Oscar Shumsky (whose 1982 performance is particularly commanding). Since then, dozens of versions have appeared, giving the works the status of classics. Among them, I’ve always admired Leonidas Kavakos’s exceptionally clear, poised account from 1999. Then there’s Thomas Zehetmair, in 2004, playing with magnificent energy and commitment, and a feeling for the music and sense of fantasy that are different from Ibragimova’s but in no way inferior. However, she takes her place now as one of the most distinguished exponents of these fascinating works. Duncan Druce D Scarlatti ‘18 Sonatas’ Keyboard Sonatas – Kk9; Kk12; Kk29; Kk32; Kk56; Kk69; Kk99; Kk119; Kk125; Kk159, ‘La caccia’; Kk141; Kk208; Kk213; Kk318; Kk373; Kk417; Kk425; Kk479 Yevgeny Sudbin pf BIS F Í BIS2138 (74’ • DDD/DSD) Back in the May 2005 issue of Gramophone, Bryce Morrison extolled the virtues of a Scarlatti disc by a young Russian pianist. His name was Yevgeny Sudbin and it was his debut on BIS. Ten years on, Sudbin decided it was time for another instalment: 18 more sonatas, as enterprisingly and imaginatively programmed as on that first disc. In the playing itself, there’s the same familiar mix of virtuosity and refinement that marked out the first CD. Sudbin embraces the full resources of his Steinway Model D to recreate this music for a modern age, describing what he does in his eloquent booklet essay as ‘in effect a piano transcription’. Just as Horowitz had his pianos doctored to create the right sound and reactivity for Scarlatti’s unique musical vision, so Sudbin changes textures, shifts phrases up an octave and avails himself of the sustaining pedal in a way that will have purists fleeing for cover. Yet even they should perhaps give pause before rejecting such vitally alive musicianship. The opening ‘Fuga’, Kk417, becomes a miniature symphony in scope, from its fervently enunciated opening scale through to the Sudbinenhanced orchestral richness of its closing moments. Repeats are never merely that – he’s not content simply to add ornamentation or change a dynamic; instead we get a sense of true development. This might sound contrived on paper, and could well have been in the hands of a lesser musician, but Sudbin is an artist of rare refinement, as he constantly demonstrates here. He pushes the boundaries, yes, but never simply for shock effect. Just listen to what he does in the first half of the A major Sonata, Kk208, where what was a simple crotchet accompaniment in the left hand suddenly wakes up in the repeat and starts a dialogue with the right. It works because, without a score in front of you, it’s hard to tell what is the work of the composer and what the pianist, so naturally do the two combine. Scarlatti’s sonatas were the food of Sudbin’s youthful studies in Russia (‘he was almost considered a “Russian” composer since his sonatas were standard repertoire for any student at the conservatories and music schools’) – and it shows in his sense of complete familiarity with the music, one that allows him tremendous freedom. Each piece offers fresh delights: Sudbin’s C major Sonata, Kk159, is extraordinary for its range of colour – the way he gives the opening horn calls a delicate haze of pedal the second time around, and adds ornamentation that in less subtle hands would be merely outlandish, yet which he carries off with aplomb. In the same sonata, Angela Hewitt, on her recent disc, sounds merely careful by comparison. Some might find that the poignancy of the F minor Sonata, Kk69, comes across most powerfully when played simply (by Anne Queffélec, for example, or Marcelle Meyer), yet Sudbin’s view of it as an operatic scena of the utmost tension is endlessly fascinating. Again, turn to Hewitt’s recent performance and what’s striking is that, though Sudbin is much more radical, Hewitt is the one who sounds less natural. He follows this piece with the restlessly brilliant Kk425 – a minefield for anyone not at the top of their game – in which he conveys not only virtuosity but a confiding quality too. He shares with Horowitz an ability to conjure up landscapes and narratives within these sonatas, so vividly and intensely are they etched. The rarely played Kk99 is given time to unfold expansively, its moments of Spanishry given with due generosity, while the downwards-rushing scales of the G minor Sonata, Kk373, are vibrantly given. Scarlatti’s famously treacherous repeated notes clearly hold no fears either, no matter how fast the tempo marking: just sample what he does in Kk29, 125 and 141, in the last of these outplaying even Pletnev, which is no mean feat. And even in a piece as well known as Kk9, one of the highlights on Queffélec’s disc, Sudbin finds a rare lightness and dexterity that leaves most others sounding ponderous. When he starts to play with things even more in the second half, it’s astonishing and utterly mesmerising. The result could have been show-offy, and it’s a tribute to his pianism and musicality that it doesn’t sound that way at all. The triumph of this disc is not that it makes you think ‘what wonderful playing’, but ‘what wonderful sonatas’. Again and again you marvel at Scarlatti’s endless invention. And, tellingly, Sudbin ends on a profound note with the tenderly inward Kk32, again given a lusciously vocal quality, which is beautifully captured by BIS’s sensitive recording. A winner. Harriet Smith gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE AWards 2016 29

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Gramophone Awards Shortlist 2016

much for the Lyric Pieces in this country before anyone bothered with them greatly. The wonders of YouTube had me hooked on sampling the composer’s own piano rolls as well as some delectable examples of Sviatoslav Richter.

Stephen Hough is up there with the best; may we never take his excellence for granted. In weight of expression he is often lighter than the great Russians, Gilels making all 20 that he plays so personal whereas Hough’s detachment – it’s a small thing – is also telling in its way, the detail and overview consistently in balance. His virtuosity, polish, control of nuance and a huge range of dynamics are lovely to have. The piano is a Yamaha, for a change, a high-end product which sometimes shouted a bit, I thought, in fortissimo, and it’s a fine recording made just a year ago at St George’s, Brandon Hill. Stephen Plaistow

Ravel Complete Works for Solo Piano Bertrand Chamayou pf Erato S b 2564 60268-1 (137’ • DDD)

Bertrand Chamayou from Toulouse has been called a prince of pianists, a hyperbolic claim, some might argue, for a musician still in his early thirties. Yet his galvanic Liszt E flat Concerto was the first using historical instruments (Ambroisie, 11/12), his Années de pèlerinage is among a handful of the finest on record (Naïve, 3/12), and both were preceded in 2006 by a stunning set of Transcendental Etudes (Vogue). His disc of Mendelssohn’s solo music is the most compelling in recent memory (Naïve, 10/08), while recordings of Schubert (Erato, 5/14) and Franck (Naïve, 9/10) are as distinctive as his collaboration with cellist Sol Gabetta in Chopin (Sony Clasical, 6/15). Up until now, however, Chamayou has recorded little of those mainstays of French pianists, Ravel and Debussy. I, for one, had no idea what was in store.

Here, in some of the 20th century’s most familiar and beloved piano music, are revelatory performances of breathtaking beauty and incomparable power. Most striking, perhaps, is their unforced naturalness. Never waylaid by wealth of detail and opulent texture, Ravel’s harmonic movement is given singularity of purpose. Everything flows with the inevitability of speech, precisely articulated, direct and unmistakably sincere. Pedal is used with the utmost tact, enveloping appropriate passages in a shimmering aura that serves to heighten contour and colour. At the root of each piece is infallible rhythm, from whence branch and flower lilting pulses and a living, breathing rubato.

The large sets, Miroirs, Valses nobles et sentimentales, Gaspard de la nuit and Le tombeau de Couperin, dazzle in their variety and originality of concept and execution. They can also be unsettling. In Miroirs, to have been tossed about on waves in the brilliant sunlight and, still damp with ocean spray, to encounter a serenade by a jester whom you thought you knew but who turns out to be someone else entirely, only to end up in a misty valley with sound of distant bells emanating from seemingly every direction, is disconcerting. It’s also viscerally thrilling. In the Valses, the kinaesthetic intoxication of the ball is palpable, until you begin to feel that it’s all been a dream. The water pieces, Jeux d’eau, ‘Ondine’ and ‘Une barque sur l’océan’, are imbued with character as distinct from one another as the pools of Caillebotte, the ponds of Monet or the seas of Turner. This is accomplished with that calibre of virtuosity that leaves one unaware of anything but the music. The canonic works are rounded out by Siloti’s effective transcription of ‘Kaddisch’ from the Two Hebrew Melodies (1914) and Alfredo Casella’s A la manière de Ravel.

Superlative Ravel seems almost in abundance these days – think Bavouzet, Thibaudet, Queffélec or Lortie. But for my ears, Chamayou brings everything home in a way that is deeply personal, vivid, unique. No one who loves French music or exquisite piano-playing will want to miss this. Patrick Rucker

Ysaÿe Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op 27 Alina Ibragimova vn Hyperion F CDA67993 (68’ • DDD)

Alina Ibragimova has made many fine recordings in recent years, but this solo

Ysaÿe disc must count as one of her most memorable achievements. She gives full value to the sonatas’ varied expressive character, their virtuosity, and the imaginative and poetic way Ysaÿe wrote for his instrument. And she makes the music sound quite beautiful: we never feel the medium of unaccompanied violin is at all limiting; the sonatas speak to us unimpeded, without any sense of strain.

Ysaÿe composed the set in 1924, when his illustrious performing career was almost over. He dedicated each of the six to a different colleague among the fraternity of violinists, and we can follow their characteristics through the set – the First Sonata for Joseph Szigeti substantial and serious, and reflecting his prowess as a Bach interpreter; the Third Sonata commemorating the free, romantic style of Enescu, the Sixth Manuel Quiroga’s Spanish heritage, and so on. Ysaÿe sought in all six works to merge the Baroque tradition of solo violin-writing exemplified by Bach with the virtuoso styles of Paganini and Ernst, plus newer ways of writing of his own, leaning towards Impressionism.

At the start of the First Sonata (track 1) we notice Ibragimova’s deliberate, serious approach, characterised by strong dynamic contrasts and a powerful sense of line. The playing here communicates deep emotional involvement; and she’s equally successful in putting over the graceful, amabile character of the contrasting third movement (tr 3).

The Second Sonata, dedicated to Ysaÿe’s close friend Jacques Thibaud, might appear to contradict what we know of the latter’s easy-going nature and graceful playing, suggesting a darker side. The initial skittish quotation from Bach’s Third Partita for Solo Violin is set against obsessive repetitions of the ‘Dies irae’ chant, which continue throughout the sonata. Ibragimova is equally at home in the gentle, muted, melancholic second movement (tr 6) and the finale, ‘Les Furies’, which she attacks with extraordinary gusto (tr 8). Especially memorable here is the reintroduction of ‘Dies irae’ as a barely audible sul ponticello whisper (1’10”), contrasting with fiercely dissonant arpeggios. With the single-movement Third Sonata, she draws a convincing distinction between the opening in recitative style, done very freely and as though improvised, and the main theme, held at a firm tempo. As the sonata nears its final climax (tr 9, 7’01”), there’s a sense of throwing caution to the wind, accomplished without any loss of tonal quality.

The Fourth Sonata is dedicated to Fritz Kreisler, with more Bachian echoes, as well as a nod to Kreisler’s interest in reviving – or composing in imitation of – more obscure 18th-century composers, with movements entitled Allemande and Sarabande. The first of these has an extremely slow tempo marking, which Ibragimova treats with freedom, allowing the movement’s different facets to come together to make a satisfying narrative. And in the moto perpetuo finale she makes full use of the varied bow strokes indicated (a

28 GRAMOPHONE AWARDS 2016

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