COMPOSERS: Schumann/Brahms
LABELS: Biddulph
WORKS: Sonata No. 2; Etudes Symphoniques; Sonata No. 3
PERFORMER: Percy Grainger (pno)
CATALOGUE NO: LHW 008
This will come as a revelation to those who know Percy Grainger only as a composer and arranger of folk music. Grainger first made his reputation as a brilliantly gifted concert pianist, and these recordings are vivid testimony to an ebullient keyboard style totally uninhibited by the recording process. Like Schnabel in his Beethoven recordings, Grainger was more concerned with getting to the heart of the music than with note by note accuracy, and whatever his performances of the Brahms and Schumann sonatas lack in precision they more than make up for in passion and spontaneity. David Michaels
Schumann/Brahms: Sonata No. 2; Etudes Symphoniques; Sonata No. 3
This will come as a revelation to those who know Percy Grainger only as a composer and arranger of folk music. Grainger first made his reputation as a brilliantly gifted concert pianist, and these recordings are vivid testimony to an ebullient keyboard style totally uninhibited by the recording process. Like Schnabel in his Beethoven recordings, Grainger was more concerned with getting to the heart of the music than with note by note accuracy, and whatever his performances of the Brahms and Schumann sonatas lack in precision they more than make up for in passion and spontaneity. David Michaels
Our rating
5
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:30 pm