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Vadim Chaimovich is a Lithuanian pianist born in 1978. He has won a number of international competitions and has given numerous recitals, both recital and with orchestra. He seems now to be based in Germany and often plays in Dresden. This is, I think, his first commercial CD though there are sound samples on his site which you’ll find easily enough by Googling his name.
 
Sheva is a label that, thus far into my acquaintance, is shy about letting us know where and when they record their artists. So I can’t tell you why it is that the recording quality throughout this disc is so very dry. It certainly plays its part in one’s appreciation of the recital.
 
Chaimovich is an adept and musical player but he favours a rather sec sound and a limited use of pedal, which together with the recorded ambience conspire to limit optimum pleasure. His articulation and phrasing in the opening of K330 is also from time to time, rather peculiar though I will note that I prefer his playing of it, as an interpretation, to that of, say, Pletnev. Chaimovich’s playing is warmer in the central slow movement than in the outer ones though again it is on balance a rather cool approach and sound. Once again in the finale he avoids the caprice of Pletnev.
 
It’s probably because of the recording quality that his dynamics didn’t register as acutely as they might in K457 where one finds a slightly metrical feel to some of the passagework. Its Adagio is not especially brisk – faster than Brendel, slower than Pletnev – but it remains cool and clear-eyed.
 
The two Mozart sonatas are joined by two by Haydn. Once again the sound is dry. There could perhaps be more zip in the G major sonata and I’m not sure he has solved some of the phrasal concerns in its Adagio, which sounds a little forced. I remember the fortepiano recording by Christine Faron on Schwann, which nailed them very successfully. The little two movement B major sonata causes fewer concerns. 
 
Clearly Chaimovich is a talented young player. But there are nevertheless areas to be addressed in his playing – such as tonal warmth for one  - that aren’t helped by the recording quality afforded him on this occasion.
 
Jonathan Woolf
 

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