In a sense it’s a slight
– though not unpleasant – surprise to
see Aulos reissue Pletnev’s Melodiya
recordings of the Tchaikovsky piano
works. The recordings here were made
between 1986 and 1988 and are by some
way the most recently recorded pieces
I’ve reviewed thus far in Aulos’s DSD
remastering series. The process has
been aided by virtue of the Korean company’s
access to Melodiya’s tapes. The whole
thing has been sensitively done, though
the notes give the bulk of the space
to descriptions of the mechanics of
Direct Stream Digital.
The original recordings
in truth weren’t of the finest; there’s
a rather recessive quality to them that
means that the degree of opacity sometimes
clouds articulation. That said the morceaux
– both Op.40 and the remainder – benefit
from Pletnev’s seemingly plastic understanding
of melody lines and weight usage. The
Etude of Op.40 is negotiated with sparkling
effervescence and there’s just the right
amount of gravity in Chanson Triste.
He navigates the variousness of
the Marche funebre with authority
never giving in to bombast and maintaining
tonal colour, and makes something droll
indeed of the second Mazurka in the
sequence – note his pert and witty left
hand voicings amidst the wit. This is
an aspect of the writing to which he
responds with wholehearted animation
as one can appreciate further, and perhaps
more fully, in Au village where
the whirling dance sections sweep one,
off kilter, into the folkloric skirl
of things. Then again he’s sensitive
to the Chopinesque veil that haunts
the second Waltz.
The second disc under
review is the third volume to be issued.
Granted these are less immediately important
or serious but there are still virtues
in the playing notwithstanding the boxy
sound (Pletnev has re-recorded a number
of the less well known Morceaux since,
but not so far as I know, any of these).
In Op.19 he manages to be both expressive
(Reverie) and crisp (Scherzo
humoristique) though he seldom stints
the simplicity and longing in such as
the Nocturne. Even in the Capriccioso
there’s a deal of lyric phrasing though
perhaps one of the most immediate highlights
of this disc is the fun he extracts
from the Humoresque Op.10 No.2.
In the early Romance one finds
Pletnev responding well to the moods
of fragility and snappy vigour that
make up its sound world.
Philips has some Pletnev-Tchaikovsky
recorded examples made around this time
and of the things not covered here,
principally The Seasons, we have discs
on Philips and Virgin. Given the occasional
nature of the morceaux this is hardly
a pressing purchase but for Pletnev
admirers it’s pretty much self-recommending.
Jonathan Woolf
Mikhail Pletnev (piano) 
