COMPOSERS: Szymanowski
LABELS: Hyperion Helios
WORKS: Four Studies, Op. 4; Métopes; Fantasy in F minor, Op. 14; Masques
PERFORMER: Dennis Lee (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: CDH 55081 Reissue (1990)
Perhaps Szymanowski’s music is too cool and sophisticated ever to become popular. Even the third of his Op. 4 Studies, which Paderewski made famous, is less full-bodied than Scriabin’s early C sharp minor Étude, and while Scriabin believed in the madness of his later music, Szymanowski’s apparent abandon in his voluptuous period around the First World War is crafted with detachment. Dennis Lee clarifies the cascades of notes – or rather sonorities – in the two major sets, Métopes and Masques, so that these complex pieces are understood more easily than usual. The recorded sound is a bit thin and small, but clean. Adrian Jack
Szymanowski: Four Studies, Op. 4; Métopes; Fantasy in F minor, Op. 14; Masques
Perhaps Szymanowski’s music is too cool and sophisticated ever to become popular. Even the third of his Op. 4 Studies, which Paderewski made famous, is less full-bodied than Scriabin’s early C sharp minor Étude, and while Scriabin believed in the madness of his later music, Szymanowski’s apparent abandon in his voluptuous period around the First World War is crafted with detachment. Dennis Lee clarifies the cascades of notes – or rather sonorities – in the two major sets, Métopes and Masques, so that these complex pieces are understood more easily than usual.
Our rating
4
Published: January 20, 2012 at 1:20 pm