Prokofiev - Piano Sonatas Nos 1-5
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Label: Somm
Cat No: SOMMCD249
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Instrumental
Release Date: 13th May 2013
Contents
About
Recording the Prokofiev Sonatas is also an important landmark for Peter Donohoe, who first came to international recognition in Moscow in 1982, when he won Second prize at the 7th Tchaikovsky International Competition, jointly with Vladimir Ovchinnicov (there was no First Prize). Since then he has maintained close links with Russia, to which he often returns on various concert engagements. He has also visited Moscow as a jury member of the 2011 Tchaikovsky Piano Competition.
Peter is no stranger to the Prokofiev Sonatas. He was asked by the publishers Boosey & Hawkes to prepare the definitive edition of the scores for them in 1985 and he also recorded Sonatas 6, 7 and 8 for EMI back in 1990. He has now added Sonatas 1 to 5 and 9 in this complete recording for the Somm catalogue, for the first time. He has, however, performed all the Sonatas in recital at some time or other over the years, and he feels – or, with typical humility, he thinks – that he has come as close to them as is possible for works of such infinite depth and stylistic complexity.
Peter has written the CD liner notes for this first volume as well as the rest of the cycle, in a relaxed, informed and affectionate manner.
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Piano Sonata no.1 in F minor, op.1
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2Piano Sonata no.2 in D minor, op.14 - I.Allegro ma non troppo
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3Piano Sonata no.3 in A minor, op.28
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4Piano Sonata no.4 in C minor, op.29 - I.Allegro molto sostenuto
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5Piano Sonata no.5 in C major, op.28 - I.Allegro tranquillo
Europadisc Review
Complete cycles of Prokofiev’s piano sonatas are still a relative rarity, with most high-profile performers tending to focus on the ‘war trilogy’ of Sonatas 6 to 8. There are few if any pianists alive today who are better qualified to undertake a complete traversal of these works than Peter Donohoe. Long a passionate advocate of this music, he has immersed himself in the Russian repertoire ever since winning joint second prize at the 1982 Tchaikovsky Competition (there being no first prize that year). He is sensitive to all the possible stylistic nuances and references, and has all the necessary technique, tonal richness and strength to boot.
This new project on the Somm label gets off to an excellent start with the first five sonatas. The single-movement First Sonata (1909) is a brilliantly assured student work in a late Romantic mould, with echoes of Tchaikovsky, Taneyev and Glazunov. There is a strongly lyrical sweep to this music, as well as virtuosic framing flourishes, all played splendidly and most persuasively here.
From the four-movement Second Sonata (1912) onwards, the music is immediately recognisable as Prokofiev’s own: physically demanding, witty, iconoclastic, and often incisively percussive. Both here and in the hugely demanding Third Sonata (1917), Donohoe turns in quite brilliant performances which are superbly agile and tautly muscular, but also yielding when more expressive subtlety is called for. This is indeed Prokofiev playing of the highest order.
Like the Third Sonata, the contemporaneous Fourth is subtitled ‘from old notebooks’, referencing Prokofiev’s habit of jotting down ideas when they came to him, and only later incorporating them into completed works. Donohoe successfully captures the more brooding mood of the first movement, and the multi-layered complexity of the second, before lifting the mood with the playful filigree and tongue-in-cheek dissonance of the finale.
In the Fifth Sonata, Donohoe opts to play the original 1923 version of the score. This work was composed during the composer’s Parisian exile, and it bears all the hallmarks of the neo-classical style of Stravinsky, Poulenc and Bartók, combined with Prokofiev’s own unique harmonic piquancy. It was received very coolly at its first performance, and Prokofiev later revised it, but the Sonata as performed here emerges as one of the composer’s most engagingly understated works, and no-one listening to this performance is likely to come away untouched.
Peter Donohoe manages to bring out the strikingly individual features of each sonata, whilst weaving a cogent musical thread through the unfolding biographical journey. The recording throughout is warm but well-focused, with plenty of presence, dynamic range, and depth of tone. The performances are further illuminated by informative notes from Donohoe himself, and both he and Somm are to be congratulated on the first release in what looks set to be an authoritative new cycle. We look forward to more!Error on this page? Let us know here
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