Nikolai Demidenko’s large-scale pianism suits Busoni’s Bach transcriptions to a tee. Listen first to the E minor prelude; you sense that Demidenko truly revels in the music’s declamatory syntax and booming bass lines. Part of this may have to do with the pianist’s Fazioli concert grand, whose resonance cuts like a saber wrapped in a velvet cloak. Demidenko sculpts fluid paragraphs out of the D major fugue’s superficially repetitious sequences, and takes the hybrid Fantasia, Adagio, and Fugue at a brisk, vehement clip. The pianist forges an effortless link between the unfinished fugue’s last measures and Busoni’s unmistakably crabbed conclusion.
By contrast, Durch Adam’s Fall ist ganz verderbt is given a broader than usual yet compellingly sustained treatment. In Wachet Auf, Demidenko succeeds better than most in projecting the middle-voice chorale tune in consistent proportion to Bach’s upper and lower lines. Oddly, the D minor Chaconne transcription proves to be the recital’s sole dud. Demidenko fusses around with agogics and tempo fluctuation to the point where the music’s unity and cumulative power fall by the wayside. If you want a freewheeling Bach/Busoni Chaconne, Evgeny Kissin delivers the goods with a more unbuttoned, scintillating kind of virtuosity. Excellent, historically informative notes by Charles Hopkins complement Hyperion’s top-notch engineering.
