MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


Support us financially by purchasing this from

Si!
Fryderyk CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op 58 (1844) [27:54]
Franz LISZT (1811-1886)
Piano Sonata in B minor, S.178 (1853) [30:43]
Domenico SCARLATTI (1685-1757)
Sonata, K87 [6:09]
Leticia Gómez-Tagle (piano)
rec. September 2018, Kulturzentrum, Immanuel
ARS PRODUKTION SACD ARS38270 [65:05]

The pairing of two of the most profoundly significant piano sonatas of the mid-nineteenth century – composed around a decade apart – makes for good programming. That all three sonatas – the little Scarlatti comes as a deft envoi, beautifully balanced and full of elegant gestures – are in the key of B minor adds to the binding connections of the disc. And that the Liszt and Chopin sonatas are two of the most performed and recorded in the repertoire is, of course, inevitable.

Mexican-born Leticia Gómez-Tagle is a thoughtful and sensitive Chopin player. The relaxed plasticity of her phrasing, her perceptive use of rubato and pedaling, and her refined touch are pleasurable features of this strong performance. Structurally in the Chopin she reminds me more of the proportions of a Fiorentino than a Cortot or Lipatti, who were both considerably more intense performers of the music. She prefers a more reserved but nevertheless potent approach in the Allegro maestoso, lithe articulation in the Scherzo, and a measured sense of refinement in the slow movement, where there is no sense of haste but similarly no indulgence. She refrains from the kind of overt emotionalism that can mar performances, preferring instead a naturally-breathed sense of expression. The gallop rhythm that opens the finale is finely judged and here she marries balance and clarity. Cortot’s torrential polarities are a world away.

There is a comparable sense of discrimination in the Liszt sonata. The ultra-virtuosic template established on disc by Horowitz sits at a profound remove to her conception, so too the relatively recent theatrics of the extraordinary performances by Mykola Suk and Minoru Nojima. Instead, she seeks to bind the work’s ruminative and passionate paragraphs in a way that makes sense of the sonata’s construction. Delicate tracery, the product of significant refinement of touch, is balanced by stringently strong chording. The result is a consonant conception of the work that brings us at its end, arch-like, to its opening gestures and has therefore generated a real sense of narrative.

Her own notes make for interesting reading and the recording has been finely judged. The two sonatas are recognizably the product of a pianist of elegance.

Jonathan Woolf



Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing