Customer Reviews

Complete Piano Music 2

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It was said of Horowitz that he played Chopin as though it were Scriabin. Mr. Fergus-Thompson plays Scriabin as though it were Chopin, which is not a bad thing, considering that Scriabin's early music consciously imitated the very best of Chopin. Gordon Fergus-Thompson has recorded the complete Scriabin for ASV, and if the other disks are anything like this one, the recordings are absolutely mandatory for anyone who loves the piano literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
I have played Scriabin's music for years, yet there are revelations in this recording--and in the other recordings of Mr. Fergus-Thompson that I have heard--that make this music completely new, and utterly irresistible. Whereas Horowitz's recordings of Scriabin were bright splashes of intense color, Fergus-Thompson's emphasize the underlying structure of the pieces--the type of pianism one associates more with someone like Sviatoslav Richter than with Horowitz. Just a couple of examples will suffice.
The third movement of Scriabin's Piano Sonata #3 in f# minor, Op.23, is marked Andante. Fergus-Thompson takes it at a tempo closer to Lento; this allows him to bring out the gorgeous inner voices, and transforms what many pianists treat as a brief "prelude" to the stormy 4th movement (marked "presto con fuoco"--very fast with fire), into a beautiful, haunting and lyrical expression of deep yearning. The effect is stunning, particularly when juxtaposed against the 4th movement.
In addition to two Scriabin Sonatas (the #3 referenced and #2, the Sonata-Fantasie--overtly the most Chopinesque of all Scriabin's big works), Fergus-Thompson plays two nocturnes and the complete set of 12 Etudes from Op. 8. Again, Horowitz was famous for his recordings of many of these Etudes, allowing him to showcase his virtuosity. F-T instead views the set as a coherent whole, and this allows him to emphasize the overall structure of the entire opus.
If I have any complaint, it is that F-T tends to take the tempi a bit slower than one is accustomed to; occasionally this becomes just a little boring as the music recedes into the background of whatever else one is doing at the moment. But overall, this is a very successful interpretation of a great Russian master of the piano.
There is a customer who has given F-T's CDs in this set a negative rating. For the life of me, I cannot understand why. . . . perhaps it is a personal issue between the rater and the pianist. For myself, these are wonderful recordings of music I treasure, not only as a pianist who plays it but also as a music-lover who loves the piano music of Alexander Scriabin. Buy this CD! Buy the whole set! It is wonderful music.