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Scarlatti - 18 Keyboard Sonatas
£14.26
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New Item
Label: BIS
Cat No: BIS2138
Barcode: 7318599921389
Format: Hybrid SACD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Instrumental
Release Date: 1st April 2016
Sudbin makes no apology for using the full tonal resources that a modern Steinway can offer in works composed for the harpsichord; playing the sonatas on a piano, he says, is effectively equivalent to making piano transcriptions of the originals, and the range of keyboard colour and pedal effects he conjures up for his selection is consistently dazzling. At times, his performances almost amount to recompositions; the ways in which he varies textures in repeats, applies ornaments and even transposes lines by an octave to make textures clearer can seem shocking, but the musicality and peerless pianism with which everything is done makes this a hugely attractive disc, even if purists will still want to hear these works played on a harpsichord. 
The rarely played Kk99 is given time to unfold expansively, its moments of Spanishry given with due generosity, while the downwards-rushing scales of the G minor Sonata, Kk373, are vibrantly given. Scarlatti’s famously treacherous repeated notes clearly hold no fears either, no matter how fast the tempo marking: just sample what he does in Kk29, 125 and 141, in the last of these outplaying even Pletnev, which is no mean feat. And even in a piece as well known as Kk9, one of the highlights on Queffélec’s disc, Sudbin finds a rare lightness and dexterity that leaves most others sounding ponderous. When he starts to play with things even more in the second half, it’s astonishing and utterly mesmerising. The result could have been show-offy, and it’s a tribute to his pianism and musicality that it doesn’t sound that way at all. The triumph of this disc is not that it makes you think ‘what wonderful playing’, but ‘what wonderful sonatas’. Again and again you marvel at Scarlatti’s endless invention. And, tellingly, Sudbin ends on a profound note with the tenderly inward Kk32, again given a lusciously vocal quality, which is beautifully captured by BIS’s sensitive recording. A winner. 
