Beethoven • Rachmaninov

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Opp 54 & 78; Rachmaninov: Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor

Ivo Pogorelich (piano)

Sony 19075956602 52.42 mins

It is almost 40 years since Ivo Pogorelich hit the scene, partly thanks to Martha Argerich’s dramatic backing, and rapidly became a gay icon and a centre of controversy. You either thought that Argerich was right in proclaiming his genius or found him impossibly mannered and self-regarding. He more or less disappeared for several decades and now makes a comeback, older but not any wiser, on this strange disc.

Beethoven’s two short but enormously charming middleperiod piano sonatas which, for all their concision, break fresh pianistic grounds, get a treatment which renders them virtually unrecognisable. Op. 54, which opens, rather oddly, with a Tempo di Menuetto, gets an arch treatment to start with from Pogorelich, which rapidly gives way to a savage assault, with Sony’s engineers doing no favours by apparently having a microphone dangling just above the hammers: it’s the closest I’ve ever felt to confronting a firing squad. And one way or another the sound is peculiar and disconcerting throughout – ‘controversial’ would be too kind a word, even for listeners who are hoping for a fresh approach.

Pogorelich was always more at home in comparatively recent repertoire, and his account of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Sonata is more interesting. But I find the work itself strange, and to judge from the different versions of it – I mean cuts or expansions – so do its performers. Pogorelich favours an expansive version and makes some interesting sounds. But overall this disc is not something I can imagine wanting ever to hear again.

Michael Tanner

PERFORMANCE ★★

RECORDING ★★