Chopin: Mazurkas Op.50, Sonata Op.35, Fantasy Op.49 – Angela Hewitt

   in Piano International (Mar, 2015)
Ukrainian pianist Behzod Abduraimov first came to public prominence in the UK in 2009, when he won the London International Piano Competition with Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto. Here is a chance to experience something of his way with that piece, then, in a studio recording.

Abduraimov offers something of an antidote to the bashers who regularly hammer out Prokofiev’s Third, the best known of the composer’s five piano concertos. His playing is accurate and he employs an appropriately dry touch. He avoids pounding out the loud piano/ orchestra chordal interchanges in the first movement, and finds much detail throughout. The slow movement is the problem: both pianist and orchestra miss the …