Pictures from an Exhibition

Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff

Scott Davie, piano

ABC Classics 476 3166

In countless libraries around the world are endless fragments of pieces by famous composers. Sketched in margins and on scraps of paper are musical tid-bits that were scarcely written to be heard, and which, when recorded, are for the most part entirely unsatisfying as musical compositions. Hidden at the end of CDs, they can pass almost unnoticed, which in many cases is a situation for which one should be grateful. Not so here! The twentieth track, a première recording of a reconstruction of a Piano Piece in A‑flat major, is remarkable. Both Scott Davie’s recording and reconstruction of this piece will give it a prosperous future.

This piece is straightforward and consists of end‑cadences transposed here and there, making it the perfect final track for this CD. More than other works presented, this one is suited ideally to the Overs piano upon which it is played. This piano has a particularly warm lower‑middle range, which strengthens the counterpoint between transpositions of the ‘cadential’ gesture and provides a continuity that would otherwise be lacking.

On occasion, the instrument’s sustaining power is less suited to the repertoire. For example, in the opening of Rachmaninoff’s First Piano Sonata, that lower‑middle register strengthens even as the upper voices have fallen in dynamic. This has the effect of implying dual temporalities, one tied to the melodic contour, the other its harmonic support. Elsewhere in this movement the flurry of notes renders this registral imbalance a more positive force, as the dense rhythmic materials more actively shape different pitch strata. Ultimately the instrument’s timbre is attractive in its luscious effortlessness.

The recordings of both the First Piano Sonata and Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition are thoroughly engaging. Davie’s performances demonstrate great clarity; his gestures are purposeful and carefully constructed, his textures lucid and precise. The first half of the disc, Pictures, demonstrates Davie’s ability to draw the ear towards a meticulously detailed middle‑ground, which prepares for the added complexities in Rachmaninoff’s Sonata.  Other than the three short pieces between the Sonata and the Piano piece in A-flat major, which seem arbitrarily inserted, the CD is constructed as a single arc.

All the recordings here are of the highest standard. Davie’s articulations are brilliantly clean, and his interpretations are insightful. It is apparent both from the convincing performances, and from the liner notes, that Davie’s scholarship in Russian music, and particularly of Rackmaninoff, provides a level of insight not often matched by performers of this repertoire.

© Michael Hooper