Yevgeny Sudbin - Haydn: Keyboard Sonatas Nos. 47, 53 & 60 '2010

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. Keyboard Sonata No. 47 in B minor, Hob.XVI:32: I. Allegro moderato
02. Keyboard Sonata No. 47 in B minor, Hob.XVI:32: II. Menuet
03. Keyboard Sonata No. 47 in B minor, Hob.XVI:32: III. Finale: Presto
04. Keyboard Sonata No. 60 in C major, Hob.XVI:50: I. Allegro
05. Keyboard Sonata No. 60 in C major, Hob.XVI:50: II. Adagio
06. Keyboard Sonata No. 60 in C major, Hob.XVI:50: III. Allegro molto
07. Keyboard Sonata No. 53 in E minor, Hob.XVI:34: I. Presto
08. Keyboard Sonata No. 53 in E minor, Hob.XVI:34: II. Adagio
09. Keyboard Sonata No. 53 in E minor, Hob.XVI:34: III. Vivace molto
10. Fantasia (Capriccio) in C major, Hob XVII:4
11. Keyboard Sonata in F minor, Hob. XVII:6, "Un piccolo divertimento:
Variations"
12. String Quartet No. 53 in D major, Op. 64, No. 5, Hob.III:63, "The Lark": IV.
Finale: Vivace (arr. for piano)

The young Russo-British pianist Yevgeny Sudbin has inspired wildly varying
reactions from critics and listeners, and he may be one of those artists whom
you simply like or not. His technical skills are unquestioned, and he gets your
attention with unusual gestures early on and coherently follows through on them.
This collection of Haydn sonatas and other keyboard works, all pretty often
played except for the Fantasia in C major, Hob. 17/4, certainly stands out from
the crowd. Playing a modern piano, Sudbin forges a distinctive sound that looks
forward in time to the Romantics without losing the Classical-era dimensions.
Sudbin's readings are free, intimate, and often humorous, an aspect of Haydn's
music on which he lays great stress in his own booklet notes (given in English,
French, and German). They're also quirky in the extreme. The most obvious
manifestation of this is the heavy but irregularly applied use of added
ornamentation, based not on any historical considerations but on whether the
artist "feels" it seems to be called for. Other odd moves include generally free
tempos, the mixture of two versions of the middle movement of the Piano Sonata
in C major, Hob. 16/50, and the use of two pedals at the same time in the
opening movement of that work, producing, in Sudbin's words, an "almost
Scriabin-esque sound" (nicely captured by BIS' engineers, to be sure). To top it
all off, there's a sort of lightly improvised piano rendition of the finale of
the String Quartet in D major, Op. 64/5, "The Lark," given the not graceful
title "Larking with Haydn." Does it all hold together? Maybe, but it's unlikely
to make a good place to start with Haydn's keyboard music. 

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