Œuvres pour piano

Description

Only in digital format, a welcome reissue of a short recording (37 minutes, it was originally an LP from EMI) serving as a business card, the year when our dearly missed Egorov participated in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium, where, once again, the public appreciated him more than the jury did. For the first time, we are given the date: 1975, and it was the following year that this young Russian sought political asylum in the Netherlands, after hesitating with the United States where he made his debut three years later. Also, a copyright from 1993 is clearly incorrect since, found in our Babel record collection and now a true collector's item, the first CD (under the Astoria label) was purchased... as early as June 1988. And this time as well, although it would have been easy, neither the prelude + fugue nor the three parts of the Concerto italiano are plagiarized. Musically, it is a valuable contribution because, along with the Chromatic Fantasy and the sixth Partita, it is curiously all that he recorded of Bach. The prelude BWV 850, a pure gallop, serves a bit as a demonstration of dexterity, but its fugue, with one or two phrases sometimes a bit rushed as well, has that kind of peacock-like Ravelian gait found in Histoires naturelles. From beginning to end, BWV 857, much more meditative and dreamlike, maintains this perfect dialogue made possible by an ideal balance between the two hands. Even more distant and stripped down, less stretched than ethereal, BWV 869 finally tips over to the other side of the mirror. As for the Concerto italiano, the verdict is clear: the highest inspiration (with that miraculously suspended time of the andante) in the most natural simplicity. (Gilles-Daniel Percet)