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Two Polish Pianists

SCHUMANN Carnaval Op. 9, Faschingsschwank aus Wien Op. 26, Gesange der Fruhe Op. 133

Wojciech Kocyan

Dux0734

RACHMANINOV Sonata No. 2, Preludes Op. 23 Nos. 3 & 8, Elegy Op. 3 No. 1 SCRIABIN Fantasy Op. 28 PROKOFIEV Sonata No. 2

Konrad Skolarski. Dux: DUX0735

Two fine piano recordings from Poland. Kocyan's Schumann is fully cometitive with the best. We don't do "comparatives" but his Carnaval will take comparison with the famous of old and more recent; in my case from Arrau's '78, a favourite in my later childhood, and the up-to-date newly researched integralé of Florian Uhlig which is well under way.

Perfectly recorded and edited, sounding as if they were live performances. Excellent analytic notes by Agnieska Jez who, amongst many details, tells us that Clara, the love of his life, didn't visit him in the asylum during his last three years until the day he died...

Skolarski, currently a graduate pupil in London of the great piano pedagogue Peter Feuchtwanger, is as good as any before the public and gives sterling accounts of his choice of important Russian master works.

It is a compelling recommendation, not only for giving us Rachmaninov's 2nd sonata in the longer original version; those are always deserving of reassessment.

I know no good reason why the later revision is most often given (c.f. the Brahms piano trio Op. 8, of which I've heard only an orchestrated version).

Peter Grahame Woolf