Published: 03 September 2012
Category: Artists

Boris Giltburg’s recording of Prokofiev’s War Sonatas on Orchid Classics is released today. The recording has already received a 5-star review in the Telegraph from Geoffrey Norris:

“These sonatas are forever linked with two of the great 20th-century Russian pianists, Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels, but the young Moscow-born Boris Giltburg brings them right up to date with playing of terrific panache and personality, digging deep into the fabric of the music to illuminate its emotional content and harnessing an authoritative bravura to underline the savagery and nervy energy that the scores often convey. He has the confidence and facility of technique to tackle some movements at intrepid speed: the inexorable propulsion of the second movement of the Sixth Sonata is taken at a true allegretto rather than the andante that its textural complexities sometimes impose, and the finale of the Seventh Sonata starts — and moreover maintains — a terrifying impetus in response to Prokofiev’s precipitato marking. If you can do it at this speed, while still ensuring that all the cross-keyboard leaps and offbeat accents are firmly in place, why not?

But this is only part of Giltburg’s skill in these sonatas, for he also has the measure of Prokofiev’s dark-hued, haunted melody and the details of dissonance that can shatter an ostensible idyll. These are powerful, intuitive performances, executed with stylistic understanding and arresting presence.”

Click on the link below to hear an extract from the disc, the final movement, Precipitato, of Prokofiev Piano Sonata No.7 in B flat, Op.83:

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