Grigory Sokolov - Chopin: Etudes, Op. 25 & Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35 (1999)

This disk is based on live performances from 1985 in Russia and 1992 in Paris. The Sonata opens the disk. It is a performance of extraordinary intensity -- one of the most dramatic and heartbreaking ever recorded, from its stern opening to its ghostly ending. It nonetheless achieves its intensity without distorting the musical fabric as Kissin does in his recent recording of this work. The first and second movements are fiery, but this passion makes way for the poignant lyric theme in the first movement and the trio in the second. The funeral march is very broad and solemn, one of the longest on disk. It doesn't quite match the vehemence Fiorentino and Rachmaninov (the latter using Rubinstein's dynamics) brought to the work, but there is no other recording that comes close. The finale is, as I said, ghostly, modernistic and ambiguous. In short, a performance of surpassing excellence.
The Etudes are in the same class. All too often one hears Etudes performed as exercises in virtuosity, played dramatically, but without the depth that induces one to return to them. This is very much the antidote for that sort of playing. Sokolov's performances sound completely original, the product of years of lavished attention. The "fun" pieces, like the G flat, come off with wit and elegance. Even in the most ferociously demanding pages, he emerges triumphant, and no. 12 brings the set to a triumphant close -- for once, not an anticlimax after the Winter Wind has blown out. Although it's a pity we don't have his op. 10, this disk is surely on the shortest of short lists of great Chopin playing.