Prokofiev Donohe

Violinist Kyung-Wha Chung's highly intense compelling performances especially in the Prokofiev Concerti here have made them favorites in Decca's catalogue for years. Rather than purely dwell on the technical rigor these works demand (as many violinists often do), Chung instead focuses more on Prokofiev's lyricism in an effort to draw out the full and varied range of emotional qualities in the score. Conductor Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra couldn't be more understanding and supportive collaborators and Decca's sound, while spotlighting Chung slightly, is quite good.

This is the Prokofiev concerto cycle for the digital age. Yefim Bronfman relishes every steely flourish of this brilliant and angular music.

As far as discs of the piano sonatas of Prokofiev go, this one with Sviatoslav Richter playing the Second and Sixth in Prague in 1965 and the Ninth in 1956 is about as close to definitive as anything can ever get in this world. Richter's strength and control, his passionate intensity, and his complete command of every aspect of technique and interpretation is brought to bear on Prokofiev's music, music closely identified with Richter and in one case composed by Prokofiev for Richter. Although Richter grew up playing Prokofiev's Second and Sixth sonatas, Prokofiev dedicated his Ninth and final sonata to Richter and Richter's interpretation is the aural incarnation of the music.

Sergey Prokofiev's output for violin and piano was quite small, and it would have been limited to the Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor had he not also arranged his Five Songs Without Words and the Flute Sonata in D major, the latter at the request of David Oistrakh. One experiences a degree of discomfort in the Violin Sonata No. 1, which is one of Prokofiev's more unsettling pieces, due in part to its sinister tone and harsh dissonances, but also to its conflicting expressions.

These are excellent performances of exceptionally interesting repertoire. Prokofiev himself arranged 19 numbers from his Cinderella ballet for solo piano, so he surely would not have objected in principle to their reworking for two pianos; nor in practice, I suspect, because Pletnev’s arrangements are fabulously idiomatic and the playing here has all the requisite sparkle and drive. Shostakovich’s Op 6 Suite is far too seldom heard. True, it is an apprentice piece and open to criticism – both the first two movements peter out rather unconvincingly and the blend of grandiosity à la Rachmaninov and academic dissection of material à la Taneyev is not always a happy or very original one. But as a learning experience the Suite was a vital springboard for the First Symphony a couple of years later and there is real depth of feeling in the slow movement, as well as intimations elsewhere of the obsessive drive of the mature Shostakovich. What a phenomenally talented 16-year-old he was!