Chopin, Liszt, Scriabin

COMPOSERS: Chopin,Liszt,Scriabin
LABELS: RCA Red Seal
ALBUM TITLE: Jean-Marc Luisada
WORKS: Piano Sonatas
PERFORMER: Jean-Marc Luisada
CATALOGUE NO: 82876 64561 2

These are unabashedly full-blooded



readings of this ultra-Romantic



repertoire, but on the whole



admirable ones. However strongly



Jean-Marc Luisada piles on the



flamboyant rhetoric, one never feels



he is carried away by his own heroic



eloquence: he’s always intellectually,



as well as technically, firmly in



control. In the Liszt B minor Sonata



he has gone back to the manuscript to correct a few details. I have lost



count of the number of Liszt Sonatas



I’ve heard in recent years that have



been high on virtuosic bluster but



essentially empty: Luisada grips



the attention from first to last bar,



the fugue a controlled torrent, the



ebbing-away of life and energy in



the final pages beautifully judged.



Among current rivals, I feel, only



Mikhail Pletnev’s magisterial



interpretation is clearly superior to



this excellent performance.



The Chopin B minor is even more



persuasive, invested throughout with



intense feeling but respecting at every



point the majesty and sturdiness of



the underlying architecture. The



fluidity and flexibility with which



Luisada phrases the melodic lines



in the first movement convey a



sense of utter spontaneity yet never



lose contact with the rhythmic



pulse. It’s a reading to be compared



with Rubinstein’s classic account,



though in the final analysis I think



Rubinstein still bears the palm



for his responsiveness to the sheer poetry of Chopin’s thought. And



the Scriabin is as haunted and darkly



visionary as one has ever heard



it – save perhaps in Horowitz’s



legendary 1956 version. Thus in



no single work do I feel Luisada



quite creates a new benchmark,



and yet overall the quality of his



pianism and his total emotional and intellectual commitment add



up to a very impressive disc indeed



– beautifully recorded, too. Calum Macdonald