Prokofiev Piano [Sonata] Sonatas, Volumes 1-3. Murray McLachlan

Olympia / Conifer (Mid  price) (CD) OCD255/7 (three discs, oas: 70, 77 and 74 minutes: DDD).

OCD255–No. 1 in F minor, Op. 1; No. 4 in C minor, Op. 29; No. 5 in C major (revised version), Op. 135; No. 9 in C major, Op. 103; No. 10 in E minor, Op. 137. OCD256–No. 2 in D minor, Op. 14; No. 7 in B flat major, Op. 83; No. 8 in B flat major, Op. 84. OCD257–No. 3 in A minor, Op. 28; No. 5 in C major (original version), Op. 38; No. 6 in A major, Op. 82. Piano Sonatinas, Op. 54–No. 1 in E minor. Four [piece] pieces, Op. 4.

There is no complete recording of the Prokofiev sonatas in the current catalogues, although as the listed comparisons indicate there are impressive versions of five out of the nine. It was astute of Olympia to pick up on the omission—the cycle has a good claim to being the most significant since Schubert—and to entrust the project to Murray McLachlan, the young Scot who gave them their admirable Miaskovsky sonatas (12/88, 3/89). The enterprise is the more valuable for its inclusion of the 67-second fragment of the Tenth Sonata, as well as the Op. 54 Sonatina from which its opening derives and the four Op. 4 pieces which bridge the gap from the conventional late-romanticism of the First Sonata to the theatrical, unmistakably Prokofievian No. 2.

Perhaps fortuitously, Volume 1 includes three otherwise unavailable sonatas, plus the fragment of the Tenth. The sonatas in question generally suit McLachlan's sane, even-tempered approach, rather more than those on the other discs. The First Sonata admittedly could be more excitable and sharply coloured, but it is typically well-prepared and fluent. In No. 4 McLachlan is not yet in a position to make as unanswerable a case for the music as Richter (thinking of the latter's recent London performance), but he plays with much feeling at the heart of the central slow movement and gets at least some of the requisite sparkle in the finale. The revised version of No. 5 is more imaginatively handled by Osorio, whose ASV recording is terribly tinny, however. Olympia's recording for McLachlan is fuller and warmer but rather too close, so that the piano too easily saturates the sound-picture. A pity he doesn't really put across the satire which, according to his sleeve-note, he finds in the slow movement, and there is a rhythmical misreading in two bars of the finale (from 4'15"). The Ninth Sonata strikes me as one of the best performances of the lot. Admittedly there is another curious rhythmical distortion from 2'37" in the second movement, but where Prokofiev calls for a sincere lyricism tinged with melancholy, as he often does in this under-rated work, McLachlan is in his element.

Volume 2 is a curious mixture. Where one might expect a young player to excel in the sporty antics of No. 2 or the muscular pyrotechnics of No. 7, McLachlan is surprisingly tame, as though not quite in touch with the tensions under the surface. Yet he excels in those pages of No. 8 which would seem to demand the most interpretative maturity (and his technique is not thrown by the extreme demands of the final pages). Even in this sonata, however, there is some constriction in dynamic range and insufficient variety of accent—as yet McLachlan lacks the weight of tone to drive home the first movement climax, and the 3/4 episode in the finale is under-driven. Switching to Bronfman on CBS, the greater sense of command is immediately evident, and even he has to give the palm to Pollini and Richter (both DG) in these sonatas.

Volume 3 starts with another cautious performance, conveying little sense of the Third Sonata's allegro tempestuoso marking (Bella Davidovich is far more idiomatic here, though as RL noted the Philips recording leaves much to be desired). After the original version of No. 5 (only the last movement significantly differs from the more often heard revision) there is a praiseworthy No. 6 (no match for Hough on ASV, however, or the more exaggerated but breathtakingly virtuosic Pogorelich on DG) and persuasive but once again rather cautious readings of the Sonatina and the Op. 4 pieces.

DJF