Ilona Jánky
or Ilona Jánky Práda to
give her the full name presented by
Swedish company Nosag in their brief
biographical notes was born to a Hungarian
family in Transylvania. She studied
in Cluj (maybe better known as Klausenburg),
entered the 1961 Enescu Piano Competition
"with good results" but was
subsequently hampered by prevailing
conditions in her country and didn’t
follow the path of a concert soloist.
Instead she taught – she’s a well-known
pedagogue in her own country - and formed
chamber partnerships. Newly active again
after a brain haemorrhage in 1999 she
has begun to make records for Nosag.
This one is a compilation of privately
recorded material made over the period
from 1965 to 1982 but the majority come
from the years between 1977 and 1982;
the Bach is the oldest; the Prokofiev
was taped in 1972.
One has to accept that
these recordings are relatively crude
documents; there’s tape hiss and sometimes
a big echo (Chopin’s Ballade in F).
In concert in what sounds a small recital
hall or a large reception room the acoustic
is very ad hoc and the piano doesn’t
always sound well. Nevertheless these
are private recordings, otherwise undocumented,
and represent resilience and dedication
on the part of pianist and company alike.
Given these drawbacks
it’s difficult to know to what extent
these recordings reflect her musicianship
though they must bear her imprimatur
given that the recordings derive from
her. Her Chopin is rather uneven. The
Ballade in F sees her rushing her bars
and at the mercy of a temperamental
technique; in all honesty this sounds
like a practice session given the number
of mistakes and slips. The other Chopin
items are considerably better but the
Sonata isn’t really persuasive; frequently
competent but rhythmically sometimes
flustered and lacking a certain amount
of feeling. The Bach, the 1965 recording,
is quite adequate though sometimes devitalised
in the last movement; the Brahms peremptory
and aggressive, with conflicting voicings
and relatively faceless in the lyric
moments. The Prokofiev is better, though,
as the booklet points out, there was
some deterioration in the tape and little
gaps remain – clearly it was a work
with which she had some real sympathy.
Schumann’s First Sonata is rather inert;
certainly the vividly etched drama of
a Gieseking is missing, though the recording
certainly hinders by smoothing out dynamic
contrasts.
This is a feeling tribute
to Ilona Jánky Práda who
has clearly been a force for musical
good in her native country.
Jonathan Woolf
Ilona Jánky Práda (piano) 
