Arcadi Volodos – Volodos In Vienna (2009) [MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC]

Arcadi Volodos - Volodos In Vienna (2009) [MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC] Download

Since his debut recording released in 1997, Arcadi Volodos, is celebrated as a keyboard genius, and is without a doubt one of today’s most outstanding and internationally interesting pianists. His unlimited virtuosity along with his unique sense of timing, colour and poetry made him a romantic narrator of intensive stories. This performance is an awesome display of keyboard command. The recorded sound does gorgeous justice both to the playing itself, and to the surrounding Vienna Musikvereinsaal acoustic.With this release we’re once again reminded that Volodos is a one-off. He has Sokolov’s genius for making even the unpianistic pianistic, yet without his occasional eccentricities. He has the steel, combined with the velvety sound, and the sense of a companionable relationship with his instrument of Gilels. Yet there’s fire aplenty too – witness his Dante Sonata, complete with the odd Volodosian touch (you’ll recall from earlier discs that he likes to make pieces his own). No one quite achieves the incandescence of Ogdon in this work, as can be seen as well as heard in a terrifying vision of the work on an EMI DVD. But the sense that technically Volodos is in complete command, and that the piano is not in pain – even at the most extreme moments – is extraordinarily compelling. And through all the handfuls of notes he never loses sight of the work’s form, the imperious left-hand theme that sweeps through the chorale-like texture done with complete assurance. You couldn’t be in Vienna without presenting a waltz or two, and here we get Ravel’s skewed take on it (though less skewed than his post-war vision, La valse). Volodos is less perfumed than some – Thibaudet and Bavouzet in their different ways spring to mind – but there’s a wonderful warmth to his sound as well as a sensitivity to the pieces’ inner workings that delights. He attains the balance between lyricism and a pungent neo-classicism every bit as effectively as Casadesus in his classic reading.

Right from the start, this is an uncompromisingly programmed recital, Volodos plunging his audience into the strange hinterland of Scriabin. Whether in the insistent lopsided gait of the Danse languide or the deep-toned Prelude No 16 from Op 11, more sensuous than Pletnev’s sharply characterised realisation, he is spellbinding. And in the Seventh Sonata Volodos is still more incense-laden and edgier than Marc-André Hamelin’s beautifully etched reading, the sonorous bells building to a cataclysmic climax. Waldszenen is perhaps the finest jewel here, with Volodos bringing his story-telling genius to every piece. Its outwardly unassuming nature is deceptive, as the many great pianists who’ve been drawn to it have shown. But Volodos is absolutely up there with the best of them, Richter and Pires included. Just sample the rapt wonder he brings to “Einsame blumen” or the combination of eeriness and an almost Bachian purity of No 4, “Verrufene Stelle”. His leave-taking, too, in No 9 couldn’t be more poignantly done, without a trace of heart-on-sleeve emoting, which makes the wistfulness all the more eloquent. The encores are supreme, from Volodos’s Bach/Vivaldi Sicilienne, which is informed by a restrained beauty worthy of Gilels, a Tchaikovsky song rendered glorious even without voice yet its piano roulades never taking the limelight, and, finally, a telling return to Scriabin. The engineers have done wonders, in spite of the live conditions, and I’d be surprised if I heard finer piano playing this year.

Tracklist:

DISC 1:
01. Alexander Scriabin: Prélude op. 37/1
02. Alexander Scriabin: Prélude op. 11/16
03. Alexander Scriabin: Dance languide op. 51/4
04. Alexander Scriabin: Guirlandes op. 73
05. Alexander Scriabin: Sonata No. 7 op. 64
06. Maurice Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales: I. Modéré très franc
07. Maurice Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales: II. Assez lent
08. Maurice Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales: III. Modéré
09. Maurice Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales: IV. Assez animé
10. Maurice Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales: V. Presque lent
11. Maurice Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales: VI. Vif
12. Maurice Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales: VII. Moins vif
13. Maurice Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales: VIII. Épilogue: Lent

DISC 2:
01. Robert Schumann: Waldszenen op. 82: I. Eintritt
02. Robert Schumann: Waldszenen op. 82: II. Jäger auf der Lauer
03. Robert Schumann: Waldszenen op. 82: III. Einsame Blumen
04. Robert Schumann: Waldszenen op. 82: IV. Verrufene Stelle
05. Robert Schumann: Waldszenen op. 82: V. Freundliche Landschaft
06. Robert Schumann: Waldszenen op. 82: VI. Herberge
07. Robert Schumann: Waldszenen op. 82: VII. Vogel als Prophet
08. Robert Schumann: Waldszenen op. 82: VIII. Jagdlied
09. Robert Schumann: Waldszenen op. 82: IX. Abschied
10. Franz Liszt: Dante Sonata
11. Johann Sebastian Bach: Sicilienne from Concerto in d-minor BWV 596
12. Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky: Lullaby in a Storm from Children’s Songs op.54/10
13. Alexander Scriabin: Feuille d’album op. 45/1