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Atma Classique5
Nikolai Medtner: Les trois dernières sonates pour piano
Benjamin Bertin, piano
Atma Classique, 2024
Bertin’s refined playing reflects his strong pianistic pedigree. The fine balance created by his elegant pianism and his undeniable understanding of Russian romantic style merits the additional spice of Slavic passionate risk-taking at climactic moments, which will only enhance the playing of this highly accomplished pianist. The pianist aptly straddles the Dionysian and Apollonian elements in Medtner’s music. Given his mastery of these fine interpretive concepts, leaning toward one or the other becomes a matter of taste and esthetic.
The first movement of Medtner’s Sonata romantica in B-flat minor, Op. 53, No. 1, opens with sensitive, expressive, delicate, and nuanced piano playing. The music is haunting, with flickers of light interspersed in a sea of darkness and despair. Bertin uses a variety of touches to capture anxiety, differentiate textures, and create layers of sound finely assembled. A technically proficient pianist, he has the gift of imagination and poetic sensibility to render justice fully to Medtner’s grim work.
The second sonata of Opus 53, Sonata minacciosa in F minor, is in one movement. Bertin exploits the range of harmonic colours and performs the picturesque passage work with the craft of a virtuoso and the taste of an intelligent artist. The last sonata, Sonate-Idylle in G major, Op. 56, opens with a baroque-like pastoral movement, which Bertin plays with clarity, attention to colouristic effects, and sensitivity. The second movement begins unassumingly before evolving into some of the most arresting musical poetry.
The album closes on Boris Shatskes’s transcription of Medtner’s song set to Alexander Pushkin’s poem When Roses Fade, Op. 36, No. 3. This album is a valuable contribution to the Medtner recording catalogue and a remarkable debut.
Playlist
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