Search - Leopold Godowsky, Johannes Brahms, Gabriel Faure :: Scriabin Sonata Fantasy No 2; Chopin Polonaise-Fantasy; Bach-Godowsky Andante Aria

Masterful Playing, Warm and Lifelike Sound

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 12/22/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The late Michel Block was a pianist whose fame did not equal his immense talent. He was appreciated by the few but somehow never succeeded in gaining the renown that his playing deserved. The story of how Arthur Rubinstein was outraged when Block did not win at the 1960 Chopin Competition is well known; Rubinstein created the 'Arthur Rubinstein Prize' on the spot and awarded it to Block. For piano aficionados he remains one of the great ones of recent times. His recording of the Albéniz 'Iberia' remains, for me, the best ever made, better even than de Larrocha's. The present CD, issued in 1994 by ProPiano, contains some of his most wonderful playing. The opening selection, Leopold Godowsky's transcription of the andante movement from Bach's Solo Violin Sonata No. 2, BWV 1003, is, for me, one of the high points of the entire CD. The transcription is extremely pianistic but requires the player be able to sustain a songful line over gently throbbing chords, a very difficult thing to pull off. Block does so marvelously, and is given some of the warmest recorded piano tone one will ever hear. When I first got this CD I couldn't get past this track; I kept playing it over and over. The Bach-Godowsky is followed by three of the Op. 76 Klavierstücke (Intermezzi Nos. 3, 4 & 7) of Brahms. These three are also slow and songful and the comments about the Bach Andante apply to them as well.



Fauré's Nocturne No. 6 in D Flat follows, and although it is in a completely different style of writing from the Germanic Bach and Brahms, the same soft and singing touch is evident. And its somewhat etiolated French ambience is a perfect lead-in to the Second Sonata ('Sonata-Fantasy') of Scriabin, a piece I once heard Block play in recital. I well recall the prolonged silence after he finished the presto, a collective intake of breath and then a roar of applause. In this performance, Block's legato has to be heard to be believed.



After the Scriabin finale, the first really fast piece on this program, the CD, somewhat brief at 58'30", concludes with Chopin's elegantly melancholy A Minor Mazurka, Op. 67, No. 4, and the soulful and dramatic Polonaise-Fantasy in A Flat, Op. 61. Block's treatment is the most gently nostalgic performance of this piece I've ever heard; I come close to tears at the point at about 12'30", just after the spectacularly managed chordal trills, when Block gets softer, even rueful, where others tend to become martial. This is inspired Chopin playing. Only in the final fortissimo section do we get any hint of harshness in the recorded sound. But the performance sweeps one away with its emotionality.



Recommended.



Scott Morrison"