Steven Osborne reviews

‘From first electrifying note-punch to last, with so much poetry and poignancy in between, this is a tour de force of pianism highlighting what seems more than ever like the great sonata sequence of the 20^th century’, writes David Nice. ‘There are so many towering performances of these harrowing works, but Steven Osborne caps them all.’

Prokofiev
Piano Sonata No. 6 in A, Op. 82; Piano Sonata No. 7 in B flat, Op. 83; Piano Sonata No. 8 in B flat, Op. 84
Steven Osborne (piano)
Hyperion CDA68298   74:28 mins

Anyone who knows Steven Osborne’s superlative set of Ravel’s solo piano music (also on Hyperion) will be impatient to hear him in the concertos. It may seem perverse then to start with the other work on this disc, but Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain is anything but incidental padding. Longer than either of the concertos, it is an outstanding companion, for the Frenchman was a key influence on Falla, while, with his Basque heritage, Ravel repeatedly turned to Spain for inspiration.

Steven Osborne, the most technically accomplished British pianist since John Ogdon, recently talked about this recording on BBC Radio 3 with Andrew McGregor, and especially about the ubiquity of counterpoint in the vast Hammerklavier Sonata Op. 106. The disc bears out his views, in that one can hear the separate voices of the writing with, so far as I know, unique clarity. The first movement becomes something in which, even more than usual with late Beethoven, everything is part of the structure of the work.

In this substantial album of Debussy’s piano music, Steven Osborne has produced a recording that at its finest is truly mesmerising. His selection of music ranges through the heartlands of the composer’s overtly pictorial works, brought to life with some extremely classy playing, aided by excellent recorded sound.

Steven Osborne’s previous successful recordings of late Stravinsky and Messiaen have arguably been good preparation for both Feldman and Crumb. Still, at first blush, this seems a rather odd combination. While both are American composers who established themselves more or less in the same decades of the late 20th century, there are some striking differences.

From the austere opening bars of the First Violin Sonata, one of Prokofiev’s towering masterpieces, it’s clear that this violin-and-piano duo is capable of the subtlest interplay. Steven Osborne is the lion, or the demon, that needs taming by Alina Ibragimova’s fiddler, dancing – sometimes ever so frailly – on the volcano.

A primary challenge in playing Beethoven’s Bagatelles is to convey spontaneously the distinctive essence of each brief piece. How difficult it must be to achieve such effects in the studio. In any case, on this outing Steven Osborne sounds inhibited. His playing is immaculately polished, but here he misses something of the arresting brusqueness, heartfelt lyricism, madcap zaniness, and tender melancholy – along with countless other shades of expression – that flit by in these pieces.

Steven Osborne’s performances of some famous Beethoven sonatas here take a different approach to that adopted by Paul Lewis, the reigning British Beethoven pianist. Lewis’s imaginative, probing explorations are so densely bejeweled with intricate details that some of his touches cannot avoid sounding didactically calculated in nature. Osborne, by contrast, plays in a plainer and more expressively direct manner.

While a number of Rachmaninov’s preludes are perennials in recital programmes, others show up with much less frequency, but Steven Osborne’s superb disc reveals the rewards to be had by listening to all 24 at a single sitting.

Steven Osborne and Ilan Volkov launch into the Piano Concerto’s opening ‘Toccata’ at a headlong pace – one that turns out to be no quicker, however, than the top end of Britten’s metronome marking (crotchet 152 to 160). For all the remarkable velocity, the playing has weight and incisiveness too, and Osborne’s way with the two central movements, ‘Waltz’ and ‘Impromptu’, is equally sure.