Laureate Series - Piano
Domenico SCARLATTI (1685-1757) Sonata in E major K.135
L.225. P234 [3.50]; Sonata in D minor K1.L366.P57 [1.45]
Maurice RAVEL (1875-1937) La Valse (1919-20) [10.55]
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918) Images Book II: ‘Cloches a
travers des feuilles’ [5.05]; Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut [5.50];
Poissons d’or [3.56]
Daniel MATEOS (b. 1977) Orión (2008) [9.16]
Sergey RACHMANINOV (1873-1943) Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat
minor Op.36 (Version 1931) [20.41]
Igor STRAVINSKY (1882-1971) Three Movements from ‘Petrushka’
(1911) [16.37]
Antonii Baryshevskyi (piano)
rec. Professional Conservatory of Music, Jaén, Spain, 24 October 2009. DDD
NAXOS 8.572573 [78.42]
When I first looked at the contents of this generously filled CD the programme
reminded me somewhat of a Wigmore Hall recital. The impression was underlined
by the sequence starting with two fleet-of–foot Scarlatti Sonatas. Then I
looked more carefully. Neither La Valse nor the Rachmaninov Second
Sonata are works which debutants take on with anything approaching alacrity.
No, Antonii Baryshevskyi (b.1988) – who until now, I am ashamed to say, I
had not heard of - is something rather more special.
First his biography which is given the booklet. Amongst his prizes is one
from his homeland, the Ukraine, where he is the holder of a scholarship called,
extraordinarily enough, Man of the Year. He won First Prize in the Fourth
Performer-Composer International Piano Competition in St. Petersburg in 2004
and amongst other prizes first prize and Contemporary Music Prize at the 51st
Premio Jaén International in Spain in 2009. This recording celebrates that
competition. Included in the programme is a new work by Malaga-born Daniel
Mateos: Orión. As the landscape in that part of Spain can be somewhat
lunar for much of the year, the musical soundscape of this work is often harsh
and brittle. This is exacerbated by the close and at times airless recording
which made me continually fiddle with the volume control. Orion is one of
the largest and most conspicuous constellations in the night sky and Mateos’s
piece is at once both blindingly glaring and mysterious. It was written especially
for the Jaén Competition.
Following Ravel’s La Valse in its piano version I found that I heard
more of the detail than in any other recording. However, for my taste, Baryshevskyi
gets too carried away if that’s possible, in the whirling final pages. It
all becomes too percussive. Again, is that the acoustic at the Conservatoire
in Jaen or the closeness of the miking creating a rather brittle sound? For
the most part he tackles Debussy with great sensitivity. His Cloches
in the first of the Images (Book II) rings out with, if I may use an
oxymoron, a muffled clarity in a slower than usual performance. The atmosphere
of descending Moonlight in the second is captivating. Poissons d’Or
has a quixotic motion but the forte passages are sometimes rather heavy-handed.
It’s in the Russian repertoire that Baryshevskyi is really at his best and
this Rachmaninov Secod Sonata is an excellent choice. It is a three movement
work revised at almost the same time as the Third Symphony, but originally
from 1913. The second movement, which rises to an impassioned climax has,
on either side a typically romantic and moving melody. I love Konstantin Scherbakov’s
singing tone on Naxos (8.554669) and you can hear Horovitz playing the third
movement in 1976 on You-Tube and be utterly carried away by its brilliance.
Nevertheless Baryshevskyi is controlled and impassioned and it is hard to
fault his overall reading.
We end with a bang. Baryshevskyi can be his virtuoso self in Stravinsky’s
Three Movements from ‘Petrushka’. I love the crispness and the touch
of rubato he discovers in the opening Danse russe. This is often quite
percussive music and the lack of warmth in the recording helps this piece
to ‘shine’ through. Terrific showmanship helps to carry off this astonishingly
difficult score and this is as good a rendition as you will ever hear.
Although there is no one interpretation here which especially stands out,
taken as a whole this a fine and musically well-balanced recital. It acts
as a superb calling-card by a (very) young pianist who is here to stay and
who will make a mark of his own in time.
Gary Higginson
A fine and musically well-balanced recital acting as a superb calling-card