Search - Rachmaninoff, Viardo :: Corelli Varitions

Medtner has never lacked for advocates, yet his work sits on the fringes of the repertoire. Unlike Rachmaninoff, whose compositional fingerprints are instantly recognizable and unmistakably Russian, Medtner's conservative idiom is harder to pin down. The music has a distinct Francophile character by way of its formal rectitude and emotional reticence. Vladimir Viardo's brisk and unsentimental way with the Sonata Reminiscenza points up the work's proximity to Fauré's elusive late works, though the Sonata Tragica's swirling passage work bears Rachmaninoff's influence. In the Corelli Variations and remaining Medtner pieces, Viardo navigates the thorny figurations with the unruffled confidence typical of both composers' pianism. To this Viardo adds his own lyrical insights and a gorgeously rounded tone, beautifully captured in this recording. --Dan Davis