April 2016 Record of the month - Gramophone
With the 2005 release of his first recording for BIS Records, Yevgeny Sudbin catapulted into the pages of the international music press. The disc was a Scarlatti recital that prompted reviewers worldwide to compare the then 24-year old pianist in the most flattering terms to Scarlatti experts such as Horowitz and Pletnev. It went on to receive a long list of distinctions, including an Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, where the accompanying review described it as ‘among the finest, certainly most enjoyable of all Scarlatti recitals’. Since then, Sudbin and BIS have enjoyed a highly successful collaboration, resulting in numerous acclaimed recordings of both solo programmes and concertos. To celebrate the past 10 years, a new Scarlatti recording seemed the obvious choice for an anniversary present – to ourselves, and of course to all Sudbin fans and Scarlatti lovers. Said and done: Sudbin met up with Marion Schwebel, the recording producer with whom he has collaborated from the very beginning, for recording sessions in the silken acoustics of St George’s in Bristol. The results can be heard on this new disc: 18 sonatas selected from the total of 555 – a collection of a striking, even bewildering, variety. Through it all, Sudbin guides us with authority but also obvious relish as he brings to life elements which his own liner notes describes as 'church bells and gunshots (K119), howls in the streets (K479), trumpets appearing on the horizon (K159), head-spinning dances (K425) but also a wonderful sense of humour (K125) – as well scenes as melancholic, lean and desiccated as a sun-baked Mediterranean landscape (K99).'
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