COMPOSERS: Szymanowski
LABELS: Divine Art
ALBUM TITLE: Szymanowski
WORKS: Complete Piano Music
PERFORMER: Sinae Lee (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: 21400
To take on such a mammoth task
as the recording of Szymanowski’s
entire piano output requires a performer of exceptional ability,
one that can accommodate the huge
technical demands of the music
whilst elucidating the dramatic
changes in his style with clarity and
conviction. The journey is indeed
challenging, moving from the
passionate Romanticism of the early
works to the exploratory mysticism of
the middle-period Masques, Métopes
and Third Sonata and culminating
in the more austere folk-like idiom of
the late Mazurkas.
On the evidence of these discs,
the Korean Sinae Lee certainly
has the necessary technical ability
to master this repertory; the most
testing passage-work in the 12 Studies
Op. 33 and the fugal Finale of the
Third Sonata pose few difficulties for
her. Likewise, in the early Preludes
and the First Sonata, she projects the
music with a real sense of forward
momentum and intensity, at the same
time managing to bring welcome
transparency of texture to the involved
contrapuntal layering of works such as
the Second Piano Sonata.
Divine Art’s very immediate piano
sound emphasises this drive for
clarity, but is perhaps less helpful in
some of the more ethereal sections
of the middle-period works where
Lee’s tonal variety is never quite as
mercurial or imaginative as that of
Piotr Anderszewski, whose recording
of the Masques and Métopes on EMI
(reviewed Proms 2005) remains
peerless. In the other repertory,
matters however are more even. I
marginally prefer Lee’s heart-onsleeve
approach to the early works in
comparison with the more reserved
conception of Martin Roscoe
(on Naxos), whilst Martin Jones
(Nimbus) is especially convincing in
the Second Sonata. Unfortunately
the recording quality of both the
Jones and Roscoe discs is somewhat
muffled, although this enables
Roscoe in particular to effect a more
atmospheric quality in the reflective
sections of the music.
While Anderszewski remains
the obvious benchmark for the
middle-period works and Marc-
André Hamelin delivers irresistibly
alluring accounts of the Mazurkas
on Hyperion, making a clear choice
among the complete sets is by no
means so straightforward. Roscoe’s
natural musicianship and Naxos’s
bargain price is certainly enticing,
and there is much to savour in
Martin Jones’s playing. However, the
better recording and Lee’s passionate
advocacy of the early music wins the
day, if only just. Erik Levi
