Karol Rathaus Piano Sonata No.1 in C minor (1920)

[Alan Howe]

...is featured on a new 2-CD set of piano sonatas by Rathaus and Shostakovich, of which only the former's No.1 is suitable for discussion here. If I were to characterise it, I'd say it sits alongside later Scriabin, downstream from Liszt in its grandiloquence.

Excerpts can be found here:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/rathaus-shostakovich-piano-sonatas/hnum/10284530

Download only here:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8820429--rathaus-shostakovich-piano-sonatas

This'll be my instrumental discovery of 2020 without a doubt. The performance by the Russian-born French pianist Vladimir Stoupel is stupefying in its brilliance.