Search - Karol Szymanowski, Martin Roscoe :: Szymanowski: Piano Works, Vol. 4

At Last, Another Volume in Martin Roscoe's Szymanowski Serie

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 01/07/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It has been five long years since the previous release in the series devoted to Szymanowski's piano music played by British pianist Martin Roscoe. One had given up hope that there would be more but, mirabile dictu!, here is Volume 4 and it contains the work I'd been hoping for, the Third Piano Sonata. There is, to be sure, stiff competition for the sonata in the recently released performance by Piotr Anderszewski on Virgin Classics, but this performance is arguably the equal of that one and at budget price to boot. There has been a release of the complete Mazurkas by Marc-André Hamelin that has come out in the meantime as well, and as there are six of the mazurkas played here, there is some comparison to be made. In that case I would give the nod to Hamelin. Still the mazurkas included here, those from Opp. 50 and 62, are finely done, if not in quite as scintillating fashion as those by Hamelin. The somewhat quirky mazurkas require a finely tuned rhythmic sense that Hamelin seems to have under somewhat better control than Roscoe.



The CD contains music from Szymanowski's earliest years when he was still under the influence of Chopin (Preludes, Op. 1) or Brahms (Variations, Op. 3) to the middle period when he had discovered the French impressionists (the Sonata, Op. 36) and on to the latter Mazurkas (Op. 62).



The Sonata is a marvel of construction. It is played without pause but has the usual four movements. There is the usual whole-tone impressionism one has come to expect in middle and late period Szymanowski, but in addition, throughout but particularly in the final fugal movement, there are several planes of sound that Roscoe manages to keep distinct. He seems to know when to shine a light on each of the different planes appropriately. This extraordinarily intricate work is played with clarity, passion and a singing line. Anderszewski plays it beautifully, too, and is perhaps given slightly richer sound, but there is nothing to complain about either in Roscoe's performance or in the recorded sound provided him by the Naxos engineers. (A relief, as one remembers how awful the sound on some earlier Roscoe Nimbus label recordings was.)



There is little question that Szymanowski has been undervalued and it appears that his music is only now beginning to be fully appreciated. Musically valid budget releases like this one can only help in that effort.



Recommended, along with the earlier issues in the series.



Scott Morrison"