Messages

I agree with Alan - the twangy Collard & Collard detracts from the listening experience. The author of the liner notes argues for why Loewe's music is better suited to a period instrument, but I'm unconvinced. The higher registers are grating, resonance is poor, and there's no depth of tone as Alan said. Mazeppa, the best work on this recording, would sound so much better on a modern grand. It's similar in texture and dramatic expression to Schubert's Erlkonig.

The exotic and zany Gypsy Sonata has some interesting moments, but again, it sounds dreadful on the chosen instrument. The Grande Sonate doesn't have distinguished thematic material, but should please those who enjoy pleasant classicism in the vein of Weber and Hummel.

Has anyone heard the works here that are also on a cpo CD? Better/worse performances, recording, etc. on the cpo? ...

I can vouch for the CPO release. The program is superior by including the beautiful Elegique F minor sonata and Le printemps, the latter much praised by Schumann.

"if his solo works are of the same level of lush romanticism as the PC"

I don't think they are. Besides the Sonata and Capriccio in B minor, I was disappointed with this release. Toccata Classics has its heart in the right place, but most of the world premiere recordings are juvenilia and trifles. The only major surprise is the Capriccio, which is a dramatic concert work of substance.

It's nice to have another recording of the Sonata, though, and Kenji Fujimura's performance rivals Mark Bebbington's.

Sorry to be a contrarian in my very first post, but I have to disagree with this: "morbid vein runs through much of it with occasional glimpses of sunshine."

I heard more sunshine and warm lyricism than morbidity. Both Sonatas are generally bright and even the Scriabinesque pieces avoid the kind of languid ennui so often heard in other Russian composers of the Silver Age. Some pieces had a melancholy tinge, but nothing overtly somber and dark. I would assign "morbid" to the piano music of Feinberg, Roslavets, Sabaneyev, Protopopov, Lyatoshynsky, and early Myaskovsky—all contemporaries of Eiges—who truly plumb the depths of psychological turmoil and wallow in decadent pessimism. Eiges is genial by comparison.

"Perhaps the Theme & Variations is a minor masterpiece."

It's a decent work, but have you heard Taneyev's Theme and Variations? Or Lyapunov's Variations and Fugue on a Russian Theme? I would argue that those are minor masterpieces.

What did you think of Eiges's "The Cuckoo"? I thought that was the real winner on this recording; there's something about that haunting theme imitating birdcalls in the "eerie stillness of a Russian forest" that demanded repeated listenings for me.