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             

CD REVIEW



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



Buy through MusicWeb for £12.00 postage paid.
You may prefer to pay by Sterling cheque or Euro notes to avoid PayPal. Contact for details

Purchase button

 

 

 

Isaac ALBENIZ (1860-1909)
Iberia
Evocación [5:15]
El Puerto [3:30]
El Corpus Christi en Sevilla [7:11]
Rondeña [6:30]
Almeria [8:01]
Triana [5:38]
El Albaicin [5:30]
El Polo [5:55]
Lavapiés [6:12]
Màlaga [5:01]
Jérez [9:33]
Eritaña [5:16]
Eduard Syomin, piano
rec. 1980-1985.  Venue information not included
MELODIYA MEL CD 10 00996 [74:25]

 


Eduard (or Edvard) Syomin’s early career was not done many favours by the Soviet regime.  Forbidden to leave the country for concerts or competitions, he worked on establishing a varied and extensive discography through Melodiya.  The material I have available is not clear on this point, but it appears that the bureaucrats seemed to have it in for him — the sale of his recordings was suppressed and many of his early recordings are considered lost.  A disc of unusual pieces that survived showed up in the Russian Piano School set that BMG/Melodiya released back in 1996 (74321 33217 2), which included some quite impressive performances of unusual repertoire, such as Godowsky’s Renaissance, a series of free arrangements after Rameau, and a clutch of the wonderful and disturbing preludes of Alexei Stanchinsky.  The liner notes of that release mention that it took sponsorship of an organization that had ties to the West in order for the recording you have here to even materialize.  Syomin’s focus on Spanish music was unusual for Soviet pianists; as the liner notes indicate, this is the first complete recording of Iberia made in the USSR.  It was soon sold out.  Ever since reading about it in the liner notes to the previous Russian Piano School release, I’ve been wondering what magic it contained.

So how does it compare?  I have my Alicia de Larrocha performance for London/Decca, as well as a newer performance on Camerata by Hiromi Okada.  In all instances de Larrocha had more expansive times, sometimes by a considerable margin Corpus Christi was 9:01 compared to Syomin’s 7:11.  And El Albaicin, at 7:27 for de Larrocha, comes in at 5:30 for Syomin.  The first piece of Iberia, Evocacion, does move at a somewhat faster clip, though not unseemingly so — Okada’s performance is only seven seconds slower.  The music doesn’t sound rushed in the listening, but de Larrocha makes the most of that extra time to add that wonderful sense of space to make her performance stand above the others. 

In Almeria we hear two very different approaches; Syomin with a more pronounced left hand part.  With de Larrocha this amounts to a sort of pedal point for the melting melody, whereas with the Syomin, things are more tenacious and up-front.  The recording tends to make this feel rather more two-dimensional in comparison with the lovely spatial quality of the de Larrocha. 

Syomin and the recording aesthetic his piano is in would work best with the outgoing and least ethereal of the pieces such as the Lavapies, but here, where the performance could be more playful, the performance and recording aesthetic instead ally themselves more with the dream-like, and the added swimminess of the recording hurts the impact this piece could have. 

Syomin certainly shines in the wonderfully energetic ending Eritaña, with wonderful control over the voicing, not letting the left hand overpower.  The clarity of the de Larrocha recording still makes it my favourite for this piece.  Overall, I find that, Syomin’s performances of these pieces, though good, is hampered by the rather two-dimensional quality of the recording. Some cleaning up of the 22-27 year-old recordings has been made, but in a crowded field, there are other discs to choose over this on.  Syomin is certainly an underappreciated pianist, and I’d love to hear more from him — here’s my vote for a Stanchinsky disc! — here’s hoping that this release won’t be the last, or the most recent, recording we hear from him.

David Blomenberg 

 

 

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos 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

 

 

Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.