Here’s a sure-fire recipe for a disc destined to languish in your local CD emporium’s “piano collection” bin–ignored, un-bought. The ingredients: small label, unknown pianist, and familiar repertoire. After all, does the world need yet another Prokofiev Seventh? And thank you very much, I’ve got my Ashkenazy, Richter, and Hamelin Scriabin Sonatas handy. All I can say is that if you pass up this disc, you’re missing a gold mine in pianist Wojciech Kocyan. He’s got it all: a complete technique, a beautiful sound, wonderful musicianship, and real individuality.
He projects the Prokofiev Seventh’s opening movement like a whimsical cat-and-mouse game, impulsively pushing the rhythm forward, then holding back when you least expect it. Freddy Kempf makes similar gestures, but they sound relatively arbitrary next to Kocyan’s canny timing. Similarly, Kocyan plays the Andante Caloroso in a freer, more Chopinesque manner than Pollini’s steadier, more poker-faced account. It totally convinces. In the concluding Precipitato Kocyan employs an unusually fast tempo that still enables him to voice the right-hand chords fully and clarify the music’s melodic cumulation while coaxing rather than banging out the bass lines. As a result, you hear more textural interplay than usual and more cogent dynamic contrasts.
Kocyan’s Scriabin strikes an ideal balance between Ashkenazy’s steel-coated drive and Hamelin’s cooler, suaver approach. For instance, he inflects the First Sonata’s purple-prose harmonies with broader-yet-never-indulgent rubatos and more intense accentuation. He makes more of the Sonata-Fantasie’s second-movement bass lines than most, letting the cascading right-hand figurations fend for themselves. Richter and Pogorelich may achieve suppler, lighter results here, but Kocyan’s superb, intelligent artistry still holds its own in such august company. Kocyan does well by the two popular Rachmaninov Preludes, although again, Richter’s shimmering delicacy and lyrical calm take pride of place. The robust and super-clear engineering further enhances these highly distinctive performances. This is a release to savor for years to come–one that no piano collector should miss. This guy’s for real.
