Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Scarlatti like you always dreamed it might be!, 23 Jul 2004
About as far away from the French school of Scarlatti playing (Jacottet's Scarlatti-Lite etc) as I could have imagined (or wished - and that's quite some way!), Pogorelich is just masterly at these divinely intricate yet simple (ha!) miniatures of Spanish Portuguese 18th Century life. The jacket notes (excellent) invite the reader to equate him with Horowitz. A Horowitz devotee for several decades, I found that a Very Big Claim at first. I was new to Pogorelich's muscular, adroit and (above all) lyrical interpretation of my Scalatti favorites (and some welcome new Sonatas appear here too), - but then I heard the music: and it is exactly so. Elegant like Horowitz, Perahia and Fou T'song, Mr P is BIG, too, and supremely controlled, too, like Landowska and Gilels, but more musical, more original, and more natural - if that is possible. I played it through twice, straight up, quite loud, eyes closed: two hours of sheer revelation followed. This CD is superb in every way, including the limpid recording engineering, and the phenomenally translucent piano (unfortunately unacknowledged in the notes). I scored it twelve and then some out of 10. Do yourself a large favour...
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful and energetic, 20 Dec 2005
Domenico Scarlatti and Ivo Pogorelich share much in common, even to the kind of upbringing they had. Both lived in a Mediterranean coastal community that was 'off the beaten path', as it were. Scarlatti was from Naples (at a time when it was not a major city), and Pogorelich is from Dubrovnik along the Croatian coasts. Thus it might seem like a natural to have the pairing of Pogorelich playing these pieces by Scarlatti. Domenico Scarlatti was son of Alessandro Scarlatti, also a noted Baroque composer. Domenico was composer of well over 500 sonatas, most of which were not published in his lifetime. His career was spent largely in Portugal and Spain, a bit far from the centre of gravity of the Baroque era, and so he is often overlooked; his father's compositions are better known in many ways, also, which adds to his being overshadowed. However, there is a unique power and vitality to the composition of Domenico, which made his music very popular. However, according to one commentator, ' The sonatas' technical difficulties have often caused them to be regarded unjustly as mere studies in virtuosity, and modern pianoforte technique owes much to their influence. They display a harmonic audacity, and adventurous use of modulation (changing from one key to another), a freshness and variety of invention and a vigorous intellectuality in thematic and structural terms which belies their "popular" tone and their apparently careless appearance on the page.' Ivo Pogorelich is a popular musician in the musical sense as well as in the success of his career. He is also very skilled in interpreting the kind of technical requirements as well as the spirit of the compositions of a composer like Scarlatti. Pogorelich was educated in Moscow, and won many competitions, but perhaps his elimination in the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw made him most famous (one judge quit in protest that he was eliminated in the third round). Pogorelich continues to work on behalf of music education, being named a UNESCO ambassador of goodwill for musical enterprises. Pogorelich's playing on this disc is a wonderful performance, technically proficient and energetic in expression.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Blissfully Beautiful, 6 Mar 2008
This is no doubt one of the finest recordings of Scarlatti Sonatas, alongside Horowitz' classic account and Pletnev's scintillating 2CD version. Pogorelich plays each sonata with utmost delicacy and solid technique. Slower sonatas are even better than fast ones, displaying pianist's supreme artistry to capture etherial beauty of the music.
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