Domenico SCARLATTI
(1685-1757)
Sonata in D minor, K.1 [02:15]
Wolfgang Amadeus
MOZART (1756-1791)
12 Variations on "Ah, vous dirai-je,
maman" K.265 [11:35]
Robert SCHUMANN
(1810-1856)
Album für die Jugend op. 68: 16.
First Loss [01:17], 14. Small
Study [02:19]
Felix MENDELSSOHN
(1809-1847)
Song Without Words in G minor op. 19/6
– "Venetian Gondola Song"
[02:23]
Song Without Words in G op. 62/1 [02:02]
Piotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY
(1840-1893)
Humoresque op. 10/2 [02:35]
Edvard GRIEG
(1843-1907)
Lyric Pieces, op. 38: 1. Berceuse
[02:29]
Lyric Pieces, op. 68: 5. Cradle Song
[02:38]
Franz SCHUBERT
(1797-1828)
Impromptu in E flat op. 90/2 [04:24]
Frédéric
CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Etude in E op. 10/3 [03:39]
Franz LISZT
(1811-1886)
Sonetto 104 del Petrarca [05:18]
Moritz MOSZKOWSKI
(1854-1925)
Caprice espagnol [05:14]
Isaac ALBENIZ
(1860-1909)
Tango [02:33]
Louis LEFEBURE-WELY
(1817-1869)
Monastery Bells [02:43]
Béla BARTOK
(1881-1945)
For Children: Excerpts from nos.
31-37 & 40 [06:43]
Claude DEBUSSY
(1862-1918)
Arabesque no. 1 [03:29]
Danse [04:51]
The ninth volume in
Szokolay’s series mostly confirms the
impressions from the fifth. The non-romantic
items by Scarlatti and Mozart
are crisply and delightfully done, and
I didn’t find his Schumann, Mendelssohn
and Grieg perfunctory this time.
The "Small Study" gets a thoughtful,
unhurried performance which can be safely
held up as a model for young hopefuls.
The ultra-famous Schubert and
Chopin items are no more than
pleasantly turned, however, and the
Liszt is short on rhetoric. Between
Horowitz’s flaming ardour and Dalberto’s
intimate poetry there will be middle
ways, but this remains small-scale and
prosaic.
Szokolay’s lively sense
of rhythm is heard at its best in the
Moszkowski and Albeniz
pieces – the latter a fetching little
miniature that I immediately played
again. Szokolay’s lilting rubato, combined
with dryish, fairly unpedalled textures,
is well in line with the Spanish school
as we know it from Alicia de Larrocha
and, more recently, Miguel Baselga.
I’m glad to have these two performances
in my collection. About the once-popular
Lefébure-Wély I’m
not so sure. I suppose the average drawing-room
pianist of the day would not have had
the various bells emerging from the
texture and chiming each with its own
timbre, like Richter playing Debussy’s
"Cloches à travers les feuilles".
He would have just played them louder
than the other notes, as Szokolay does.
But is there any point in playing this
music today if the pianist doesn’t
have us gasping with amazement at
his seemingly impossible achievement?
The Bartók
pieces sound unusually warm and flexible
for this composer, but in view of Szokolay’s
birthright and academic pedigree I hesitate
to criticize. The performances may win
new friends for the Bartók.
The Debussy Arabesques
– including no. 2 in Volume 5 – and
Danse show that Szokolay has
a winning way with this sort of salon
music, flexible yet fleet and unindulgent.
The Hatto fraudsters were quite
right to single out these Arabesques
from their company and to realize that
with a more distanced sound, and a very
slight relaxation in the tempi, of no.
2 in particular, they could sound very
fetching indeed. Farhan Malik’s wavefiles
can be seen here.
I found it interesting
to compare Szokolay in these pieces
with Klára Kormendi, who set
them down for Naxos as part of a Debussy
programme (8.550253 but discontinued)
at much the same time, in the same venue
– so presumably playing the same piano
– with the same engineer and, in the
case of Szokolay’s 1st Arabesque,
the same producer too. A casual listener
might suppose them the same performances,
since Kormendi also takes a fresh, flowing
view. On closer examination, Kormendi
allows herself a little more space for
point-making, I’d say to the advantage
of the 1st Arabesque, less
so in the 2nd where she is
laboured by comparison. Both are preferable
to several more famous names. The really
interesting thing is that Szokolay and
Kormendi apparently resemble each other
more than Szokolay and "Hatto",
who actually are the same. A nice demonstration
of the extent to which input of the
producer and engineer can considerably
influence the result, especially when
the performers’ own personalities are
not overwhelming. I clearly do not suggest
that Rubinstein and Horowitz recorded
on the same piano in the same venue
by the same team would sound virtually
the same!
My original review
was largely taken up by the Etudes,
now known to be the little-known but
very fine set by
Margit Rahkonon. I simply referred
to the Arabesques as "upfront,
boisterous performances – more Chaminade
than Fauré, and why not in these
youthful effusions?".
Christopher Howell
Balász Szokolay (piano) 
