AVAILABILITY
www.monarchclassics.com
These aren’t new recordings.
They were remastered in 2002 and form
part of a series of discs from the distinguished
and formidable American pianist Jerome
Rose. Monarch Classics has already released
examples, amongst other things, of his
Beethoven, Schumann and Liszt, all recently
recorded - so their roster is a strong
one.
Rose is fully equipped,
as one would expect, to deal with the
technical exigencies of this repertoire.
He has a big technique and considerable
sensitivity, the former generally subsumed
to the latter, and that means that these
traversals have considerable authority.
They also have great colour and life;
these are constantly invigorating and
adrenalin-packed readings that can sometimes
highlight the big gesture somewhat too
blatantly. In this regard, and despite
the remastering, he has to contend with
a difficult acoustic and recording set-up.
The piano sounds clangy and the studio
sounds somewhat airless; the result
is that the piano sound is too up front,
which renders some runs in the G minor,
for instance, unclear. This is a work
he plays with great frisson and energy,
with considerable colouristic imagination,
but which is arguably guilty of some
rushed passages in approaching structural
peaks.
In the A major there
is something of a strident, hectoring
quality to the playing which might not
suit all tastes. This is partly a consequence
of the recording and that applies even
more in the case of the F minor. The
hard-hitting quality one notices elsewhere,
which is not to deny the considerable
oases of poetic playing he cultivates,
can move perilously close to an unfeeling
externalised sense. One feels here as
elsewhere that climaxes are rushed,
that he doesn’t time them with optimum
expressive and emotive effectiveness.
The Fantasie is very
effective. He avoids a great deal of
pedal and makes much of the contrastive
material. He’s notably successful in
creating and sustaining atmosphere though
once more some will find that the keen
excitement he generates comes at the
cost of structural integrity and properly
preparing for the climax. Given these
very personalised approaches and given
the problems inherent in the recording
this is one very much for Rose’s admirers.
Jonathan Woolf
Jerome Rose (piano) 
