Samples Piano Mid

This is a reissue of the 1993 Chandos recording which was welcomed by Michael Oliver, who heard Prokofiev in the background of the solo piano concertos. The first version of No 1 (1939) was for strings and percussion but three years later Rawsthorne rescored it for full orchestra and in that form the work became popular. The whirligig semiquavers in the fast movements create a scherzo atmosphere and the last movement is a tarantella. In between comes a grave chaconne full of Rawsthorne’s fingerprints.

A CD containing Bruckner’s music for piano may come as something of a surprise, since you either need to know a lot about Bruckner, or conversely very little, to expect such a thing. Yet here it is, and very interesting it is too. Fumiko Shiraga plays very well, and her performances can be described as dedicated and thoroughly prepared. In addition the BIS recorded sound is as good as we have come to expect from this reliable company: full toned and atmospheric, with due attention to detail.

26 year-old Denis Kozhukhin arrives on the recording scene fully-fledged, like Athena springing from the head of Zeus. Intellect is central: I’ve never heard so much revelatory detail in Prokofiev’s triptych of dark and painful masterpieces. Kozhukhin has a way of bringing out the detail of the inner parts, or even a usually inconsequential-seeming bass line, that highlights the drama instead of distracting from it; there’s so much internal play in the droll march-scherzo of the Sixth Sonata, so much genius revealed about the way Prokofiev elaborates or dislocates the minuet theme at the heart of the Eighth. The touch is one that the composer-pianist would probably applaud: clear rather than dry, recorded with superb presence and ringing treble, bringing in the sustaining pedal with mesmerising care only to nuance the more pensive themes.