Ksenia Nosikova, Pro Corde Chamber Consort, William LaRue Jones - Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra (2009)

On recordings, Iowa-based, Russian-born pianist Ksenia Nosikova has heretofore distinguished herself with critically praised recordings of Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage for Centaur Records and a fine solo piano disc for Profil Edition Gunter Hänssler Flight and Fire, devoted to the music of Lera Auerbach. In this Profil Edition Gunter Hänssler release, Music for Piano & Chamber Orchestra, Nosikova contrasts Liszt's prognosticative Malédiction for piano and strings with earlier works by Felix Mendelssohn and Muzio Clementi. The Mendelssohn is early, indeed; composed in 1822 when he was 13 years old, it is a dark and determined work in the manner of his string symphonies and "Hebrides" Overture, yet remains the most obscure of Mendelssohn's three solo piano concertos. Clementi's piano concerto, written in the 1780s but surviving only in a copy made by a third party, with altered instrumentation in 1796, is by far the least often heard of these works. The Mendelssohn work is a good match for Liszt's stormy, angry Malédiction; despite the reported enmity between Clementi and Mozart, however, Clementi's concerto -- included within the context of romantic piano concertos before -- rather closely adheres to Mozart's model; it could almost pass for Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 28, but the orchestration is not quite so adequately handled.

Recorded at Clapp Recital Hall in Iowa City, the sound of the overall disc is warm and mildly reverberant, and Nosikova acquits herself well in all three works. The Malédiction is excellent and one of the best recordings ever made of this piece; the performance succeeds in maintaining a dramatic argument for the whole 15-minute movement, with admirable cooperation between the soloist and accompaniment, rather than a piece that maintains interest only for certain sections, as is common to recordings of the work. However, the remaining two pieces do not maintain the same sense of cohesion and energy; the accompaniment in the Mendelssohn is sheepish, tentative, and sometimes barely there. The Clementi is better, but the orchestral entrances in the concluding Presto are often mislaid and sound sloppy. The final result is that the disc has a strong performance of the Liszt work, but the band did not have enough rehearsal time to perfect the other two selections, and 15 minutes of a CD that runs 74 is not an average one feels strongly compelled to recommend. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis