Nikolai Myaskovsky - Piano Sonatas. Vol.2 - Nos.4 & 5

Nikolai MYASKOVSKY (1881-1950)

Piano sonatas Nos.4 and 5

Sonatine

Prelude

Murray McLachlan (Piano)

The Fourth Sonata's experimental nightmarish quality flies along through McLachlan's fingers only marginally faster than Hegedüs but better recorded. Is it just me or does this second volume have a sound which is not as close as the first? The soft filigree of the left hand at 2.49 in the Allegro con brio recalls figures from the piano part at the start of the finale of Bax's Winter Legends for piano and orchestra.

The Op. 51 Sonatine is new to the scene; not included in the Marco Polo trilogy. It is a work of the Tbilisi exile years (1942 onwards) where he stayed with so many other Soviet composers safe from wartime danger and freed to compose. Like the Op. 58 Prelude and the Rondo-Sonate there is a ruminative nostalgia here for better times. This language is quite distinct from Miaskovsky in Soviet-Macdowell mode; more solid, not brittle, closer to Arthur Bliss than to Bax and Ireland. McLachlan is outstanding in rhythmic and dynamic skills which are called on in primis in the Molto vivo.

Moving onwards to the four movement Fifth Sonata the Scriabin references are now much clearer than they were with Hegedüs. This is the early Scriabin, gracious and alive with flighty delight as in the Piano Concerto which I think of as Scriabin's best piece. This sonata is amongst the easiest of the nine to like; not that the last four are at all hard work but then they were written as didactic pieces.

The Prelude is spun from melodies that have the same static introspection as the Satie Gymopédies as well as the stately pacing of Fauré.

Rob Barnett