Composers: Prokofiev
Compositions: Piano Sonatas Nos 4, 7 & 9
Performers: Alexander Melnikov p
Catalogue Number: Harmonia Mundi HMM902203

Two volumes in, Alexander Melnikov’s commanding survey of Prokofiev’s piano sonatas is already proving itself essential. Reviewing the first instalment for Limelight, Warwick Arnold observed that “the essence of [Prokofiev’s] genius is distilled in his piano writing”. That quality is to the fore in the Richter-dedicated Ninth Sonata of 1951, where Melnikov negotiates its lowering inscrutability with a deft, turn-on-a-sixpence deliberateness as precise and provocative as it is pungent and poetic. Employing an economy of approach bordering on the austere,...