Prokofiev – Piano Sonatas Vol.III
David Jalbert
ATMA ACD2 2463 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/prokofiev-piano-sonatas-vol-iii)
David Jalbert has for years now been numbered amongst Canada’s very best pianists. He has been recording sensitive renditions of Russian repertoire, and here he is in the third and final instalment of the Complete Piano Sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev which stand as a pinnacle amongst mid-20th century piano composition. They are not often assayed because of their stringent technical demands, especially these last few, written in close collaboration with Sviatoslav Richter. Richter premiered most of Prokofiev’s later sonatas, and this is rarefied territory which Jalbert masters with aplomb.
These pieces are not only intense, they have to be displayed in a relaxed way no matter the storm of notes creating the aesthetic tension. The thrilling climaxes in the Eighth Sonata never threaten to become clotted, with absolutely clear articulation through the tangled but never muddy Iines. The dynamics can become suddenly thunderous, or fall into transparent mid-distance textures, the volume wells up in a complex of contrapuntal lines, but there is never any banging on chords. Amazing stuff, and Jalbert really brings out the Prokofievian earmarks.
There is a bit of chord banging in the makeweight Sarcasms from 1911 however, when Prokofiev was still working on being a musical “Bad boy.”
This is all borne by the absolutely exemplary capture of the piano sound, which is the best imaginable, placed in a resonant but not too roomy acoustic in the Isabel Bader Center in Kingston. The piano is not named.
This is urgently recommended, and I will now seek out the first two volumes of this series, which augur to be the best integral set of some of Prokofiev’s greatest music.
