Search - Michael Ponti, Scriabin :: Scriabin: Complete Sonatas

Advice for Scriabin collectors

Dace Gisclard | Houston, TX | 08/01/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This set is one of the great tragedies of recorded music. Ponti is a great Scriabin player, despite the occasional side-swiped notes. Unfortunately, the sound of the sonatas in this set is virtually unlistenable-fryingly over bright treble and boomy bass--it sounds like it was recorded by someone used to recording rock. The performances aren't coarse and harsh, but the sound IS, and the recording engineer should be taken out and shot!



It's a tragedy, because the playing is marvellous, if a little lacking in finish (I suspect this set was recorded very quickly). The other pieces in the set are more listentably recorded. I found that adjusting the tone controls to treble at 9:00 and bass at 10:00 renders everything except the sonatas much easier to take.



Unfortunately, if one wants Ponti's Scriabin complete (even if one chooses to supplement his sonatas with something in better sound) one has to buy both this set and his set of the "Complete Piano Music" on five CD's. That's actually not so bad--the sets are cheap enough.



However, if merely getting the complete Scriabin is your goal, there are alternatives.



1. There's a really excellent 8-disc set of all Scriabin works with opus numbers available on Capriccio played by Maria Lettberg. This is really first-rate, and can form the basis of your Scriabin collection.



2. Lettberg doesn't play the early sonatas in E-flat minor and G-sharp minor (not to be confused with No.2). One can get these either by Ponti (in this sonata set) or Roberto Szidon (in HIS set of the sonatas, with better sound). Again, both are fairly cheap.



3. Two possibilities here: Lettberg also doesn't play a great deal of posthumously-published early Scriabin. Most of this is available on Coombs's CD of "The Early Scriabin," although he doesn't play the early "Albumleaves" in F-sharp and A-flat and the Fantasy for Two Pianos. All of the pieces Coombs plays plus everything he doesn't are in Ponti's set called "Complete Piano Music". The sound of this set can be rendered fairly listenable with the tone controls.



To sum up: Get Lettberg's set. Add the two early sonatas she doesn't play either from Ponti or Szidon (better sound than Ponti). Add the early pieces from Ponti (which will make your collection absolutely complete) or just Coombs's (better sound, but incomplete). And oh, yes, you might want another set of the sonatas--these pieces are so multi-faceted that you might want more than one interpretation-my personal favorite is Hamelin.



RE the Sonata in E-flat minor: This work has come down to us unfinished. If you're interested, see my comment on Glemser's and Ponti's different solutions attached to "SRS"'s review."

Not good, but not that bad either

M. Hendrik | Ghent, Belgium | 05/28/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This set of Scriabin sonatas is nowhere near as bad as some make it out to be. In fact, I would probably recommend it over a lot of recordings which are technically superior but otherwise completely fail to grasp the fire and energy of Scriabin. Whatever its faults, the record is certainly never boring. And in some of the late sonatas Ponti actually delivers surprisingly good performances, particularly in the 6th, 7th and 8th sonatas.



But faults there are, and therefore caution is warranted. The sound quality leaves a lot to be desired, for one. Second, the playing is insanely fast, a fact which really cannot be overstated. Ponti is probably the single fastest Scriabin interpreter on record, knocking about 3 minutes off each work on average.



I'm not completely sure what motivated this frenzy. Was Ponti trying to set a world record? Or hoping to fit the entire 10 sonatas on one disc? Perhaps this was truly his angle on Scriabin's music. And truth be told, his manic approach sometimes works, as on the 6th and 7th sonatas. More often however, Ponti's speed gives the recording a rather dubious impression, as indicated by the other reviews here on Amazon. It sounds suspiciously as if Ponti was contractually obliged to record the album, and canned the whole thing in one session just to get it over with.



Still, I've grown to like some of the performances on this album. The 6th is frightening in its terror surges and superbly ethereal (bordering on impressionism) during the final passages. In the 7th, Ponti's speed does much to illuminate the structure of the work, but at the cost of emotional nuance. The "bell" chords convey little mysticism, and gone is the quiet despair lurking beneath the main theme. Ponti nonetheless delivers a compelling performance that somehow seems more visceral than spiritual. The 8th finally, is never allowed to meander (though it may have been Scriabin's intention for it to do so) and contains more urgency than Ashkenazy's or Sofronitsky's versions.



My final verdict is a somewhat mixed recommendation. Those who are new to Scriabin will certainly be better off with Ashkenazy, Laredo or Taub for a complete set. But Ponti is interesting in his own right, I think, especially for those who appreciate a pianist taking chances once in a while.



I maintain that Ponti's set does not rank among the absolute worst recordings available (such as Dubourg's). This man at least has the necessary fire and energy to perform Scriabin. The music may often be too fast, but I reckon that's still better than performing Scriabin too slow (Szidon), which is completely lethal to this kind of music and utterly unacceptable to me."