Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / Wojciech Kocyan Aces Prokofiev's Sonata No. 7

Transcript

Wojciech Kocyan Aces Prokofiev's Sonata No. 7 · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

• 0:00
  This is Jed Disler and welcome to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano
• 0:15
  recordings.
• 0:17
  And have I got an album for you?
• 0:21
  In fact, this is a release that you are likely not to know anything about because it features
• 0:27
  a pianist who is all but unknown.
• 0:30
  I remember very vividly when I received a copy of this disc for review, oh, I guess
• 0:37
  around 25 years ago.
• 0:39
  It was on the Polish Ducks label and it featured Skriabin's first two piano sonatas, the Prokofiev
• 0:47
  Sonata No. 7 and two Rachmaninoff Preludes.
• 0:51
  The performances were by a Polish pianist named Wojciech Kosian and I was totally gobsmacked
• 1:00
  by his fantastic workmanship and his superb musicality.
• 1:06
  For some time this pianist has been based in California where he has a private teaching
• 1:12
  studio in Marina del Rey according to the internet and of course we believe everything
• 1:19
  that's on the internet, right?
• 1:20
  Well, I think that's probably true.
• 1:23
  He also serves on the faculty of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
• 1:29
  In fact, if you look at the link to his website that I've posted in this episode's program
• 1:35
  information, you will learn that Wojciech Kosian has a long and impressive resume.
• 1:42
  The website also gives links to lots of excellent YouTube videos with this pianist.
• 1:48
  But this particular solo CD on the Ducks label is really, really special.
• 1:56
  Kosian gives flexible, full-bodied and harmonically aware performances of Skriabin's first two
• 2:03
  piano sonatas and you will notice that the second sonata's whirlwind final movement is
• 2:11
  quite interesting because he's one of the few pianists who brings out the bass lines.
• 2:17
  He brings them out to the fore.
• 2:19
  Most pianists just concentrate on the fast cascading right hand runs and the left hand
• 2:25
  turns into a doormat.
• 2:27
  But not Wojciech Kosian.
• 2:29
  And he plays the Rachmaninoff D major prelude from Opus 23 and the G sharp minor prelude
• 2:36
  from the Opus 32 really, really well.
• 2:40
  He plays them as well as Fyodorov, Richter, or Vladimir Ashkenazi, I would say.
• 2:46
  But what's really, really distinctive is this pianist's Prokofiev seventh sonata.
• 2:54
  He brings a lightness and whimsy to the first movement that evokes something of a cat and
• 3:01
  mouse game where the rhythm, I guess, sometimes pushes forward and then sometimes it's held
• 3:08
  back.
• 3:09
  Yet these expressive gestures are not arbitrary.
• 3:13
  They sound as if they've been deliberately and meticulously gauged and timed.
• 3:21
  The central andante coloroso has an almost Chopinesque freedom to it.
• 3:27
  The melodic line just really soars and penetrates in a way that's very convincing.
• 3:34
  It totally differs from the steadier, more poker faced restraint of Maurizio Polini's
• 3:42
  classic recording, which is also wonderful in its way.
• 3:47
  It's hard to choose.
• 3:48
  I think both approaches to this movement are equally valid.
• 3:52
  Now while a lot of young hotshot piano players take the concluding Pratchipitatto movement
• 4:02
  faster and faster with each passing year, yet saying less and less musically, Voces
• 4:09
  Cochan manages to beat them at their own game.
• 4:13
  He has a very fast tempo, but he carefully voices the chords for maximum melodic impact
• 4:21
  and he brings out much more textural interplay between the hands and much more contrast and
• 4:29
  dynamics than a lot of younger pianists.
• 4:33
  Polini's recording is really quite wonderful too, but while Polini grabs you by the lapel
• 4:39
  and maintains that grasp on your lapel, Cochan I think lets you into the music more.
• 4:47
  I tend to overuse the phrase cumulative momentum when I write record reviews, yet the way that
• 4:54
  Cochan scales the music's dynamics and the way that he builds the energy steadily and
• 5:01
  gradually I think really defines cumulative momentum.
• 5:07
  This is a movement where way too many players lapse into banging and they always get too
• 5:13
  loud too soon, so consequently the music's over before it begins, but not in Voces Cochan's
• 5:21
  remarkable interpretation.
• 5:23
  Also this CD is beautifully engineered.
• 5:27
  Now for many collectors the Maurizio Polini Prokofiev 7th will still hold forth as a version
• 5:35
  of reference and I understand why, and it is a brilliant performance and you can't deny
• 5:41
  his staggering virtuosity and command of the writing.
• 5:45
  I would also put the recent Yuja Wang recording way up at the top of the Prokofiev 7th shortlist.
• 5:53
  He's lighter and more playful and also the first Vladimir Ashkenazi recording, the one
• 6:00
  he made when he was really really young for EMI, that's pretty amazing.
• 6:06
  Also his first recording for DECA is quite wonderful.
• 6:11
  But you know as a reviewer and as the long time radio host of the weekly radio show about
• 6:19
  piano music called Between the Keys that's on the classical network and WWFM.org, I have
• 6:26
  long learned to be open to artistic excellence wherever I can find it, no matter how unlikely
• 6:34
  or obscure the source.
• 6:38
  Or should I say that I'm always open to artistic excellence from sources that live under the
• 6:44
  radar and off the beaten track, and the undeniable excellence of Voce's Koschans Prokofiev 7th
• 6:54
  is really its own reward and its own justification.
• 6:58
  So are the Skriyabin and Rachmaninoff tracks.
• 7:01
  This is an absolutely wonderful disc and you can see a link to my review in the episode
• 7:09
  description.
• 7:10
  This is Jed Distler and I thank you for checking out the Piano Maven podcast, your friendly
• 7:17
  guide to piano recordings, and I hope you will check out this recording by pianist Voce
• 7:23
  Koschans.
• 7:24
  He's the real deal.