Document

  1995
    August 1995
        Instrumental
                Prokofiev Piano Works.

Prokofiev Ten [Piece] Pieces from "Romeo and Juliet", Op. 75. Three [Piece] Pieces from "Cinderella", Op. 95. Ten [Piece] Pieces from "Cinderella", Op. 97. Three [Piece] Pieces, Op. 96. Frederic Chiu (pf).

Harmonia Mundi (Full price) (CD) HMU90 7150 (64 minutes: DDD).

This issue usefully complements Frederic Chiu's earlier Harmonia Mundi issue of the piano sonatas (1/94) and constitutes Vol. 4 of a complete Prokofiev cycle. Once again this young American pianist shows himself to be both agile and sympathetic to Prokofiev's alternations of lyricism and astringency. He is notably quick to convey how, in Romeo and Juliet, conventional romance is poisoned by a world of over-heated emotions, by a rancour that ignites like wild fire with lethal results (an ambience "where civil blood makes civil hands unclean"). From Chiu we are made doubly conscious of Capulet's rumbustious greeting in No. 3, of Juliet's flighty and mercurial temperament in No. 4, of the warlike stance of the Capulets and Montagues ("two households . . . from ancient grudge break to new mutiny") and of Mercutio's wild capacity to pick quarrels. Friar Laurence's benediction is finely caught but the overall impression is tart and hyperactive.

Much the same could be said of Chiu's way with Cinderella and in the final piece from Op. 96 (an 'acceleration' as well as Mephisto Waltz) he leaves you in no doubt concerning his agility. Yet, more generally, I missed the even more elegant and incisive characterization achieved in Romeo and Juliet by Steven de Groot on his, admittedly, poorly recorded Finlandia disc (11/92 – nla). Andrei Gavrilov's long-deleted EMI version (7/80) of the same suite commands a different level of virtuosity.

Harmonia Mundi's recordings are, like the performances, crisp and bright. The lively and contentious accompanying essay is by Frederic Chiu himself. A further claim, however, that Chiu is "the inheritor of Godowsky and Rachmaninov" hardly helps the cause.

BM



		This issue usefully complements Frederic Chiu's earlier Harmonia Mundi issue of the piano sonatas (1/94) and constitutes Vol. 4 of a complete Prokofiev cycle. Once again this young American pianist shows himself to be both agile and sympathetic to Prokofiev's alternations of lyricism and astringency. He is notably quick to convey how, in Romeo and Juliet, conventional romance is poisoned by a world of over-heated emotions, by a rancour that ignites like wild fire with lethal results (an ambience "where civil blood makes civil hands unclean"). From Chiu we are made doubly conscious of Capulet's rumbustious greeting in No. 3, of Juliet's flighty and mercurial temperament in No. 4, of the warlike stance of the Capulets and Montagues ("two households . . . from ancient grudge break to new mutiny") and of Mercutio's wild capacity to pick quarrels. Friar Laurence's benediction is finely caught but the overall impression is tart and hyperactive.



		Much the same could be said of Chiu's way with Cinderella and in the final piece from Op. 96 (an 'acceleration' as well as Mephisto Waltz) he leaves you in no doubt concerning his agility. Yet, more generally, I missed the even more elegant and incisive characterization achieved in Romeo and Juliet by Steven de Groot on his, admittedly, poorly recorded Finlandia disc (11/92 – nla). Andrei Gavrilov's long-deleted EMI version (7/80) of the same suite commands a different level of virtuosity.



		Harmonia Mundi's recordings are, like the performances, crisp and bright. The lively and contentious accompanying essay is by Frederic Chiu himself. A further claim, however, that Chiu is "the inheritor of Godowsky and Rachmaninov" hardly helps the cause.