Customer Reviews

The Piano Works Of Nikolai Medtner, Volume 1

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I was first introduced to the music of Medtner in 1994 when I heard Boris Berezovsky perform three "Fairy Tales" at a recital. I was so taken that I had to begin collecting Medtner's music on CD. This album, Geoffrey Tozer's first volume of the piano works of Medtner, was my first Medtner CD. Mr. Tozer is a very fine pianist, and the Chandos stereo sound is first rate. The result is a captivating introduction to Medtner's music. The music is complex, harmonically daring, sometimes quirky, whimsical at times and always evocative. Mr. Tozer plays sensitively and is in complete technical command. He does us a wonderful service in bringing this music to a wider audience. Through this disc I have come to know and love many more pieces by Medtner, and I have been inspired to buy each new volume of Mr. Tozer's set as it has become available. This is the volume of the set that I play most often. It is a rich introduction to this fascinating music.

The first volume in Tozer's traversal of the complete piano music by Medtner for Chandos contains some of his more famous works, although it is - in fact - not the most interesting volume in the series (for some of these pieces the competition is currently rather fierce).

But one thing is certain; Medtner was not merely an also-ran, but a first-rate composer. Perhaps the ideas are just a tad less immediately identifiable than Rachmaninov's, but Medtner's palette and ability to build an atmosphere and develop his ideas can withstand any comparison. The Sonata Reminiscenza is a masterpiece, somewhat inward looking but magically satisfying and developed. Equally impressive is the Lisztian g-minor sonata. Whereas Tozer is a splendid pianist, fully able to grasp and convey the idiom, the competition is rather fierce (think Hamelin), especially in the g-minor, where Moiseiwitsch is unassailable. The selection of Fairy Tales displays the mastery of this composer no less than the sonatas.

Tozer handles, as mentioned, these pieces excellently and is warmly recorded. And while he might not be first choice in any of the pieces, a composer of Medtner's stature surely needs complete representation, and for that Tozer is probably the best choice. But do check out some of the alternative recordings for even more magisterial and penetrating interpretations.