| Site review by akiralx August 27, 2012
|
|
An excellently recording with ideal piano sound. Jin Ju's account of the op. 17 Fantaisie is one of the finest of recent years, occasionally ruminative, but with a firm impetus. One never feels the music is in danger of coming to a halt as with Pletnev's DG account.
A slight criticism of the performance is that the notoriously tricky 'skipping' coda of the central movement is a tad ungainly as if Ju was stretched technically here.
The total timing is over 34 minutes but the interpretation does not feel slow. The Sonata, a lesser work, begins commandingly and Jin Ju holds the disparate structure together well.
One thing worth mentioning though is that Jin Ju plays the original coda of the Fantaisie's Finale, not the revised (i.e. normal) edition played by virtually ever other pianist. The only other soloist to do so as far as I know is Andras Schiff on his fairly recent ECM recording. He also played the Finale with the usual ending as an appendix, which Jin Ju doesn't do here.
The original text has the soloist modulating the valedictory chordal sequence into a touching passage just before the end of the work - I actually now prefer this to the normal edition, but slight black marks to MDG for not mentioning this alternative reading anywhere in their notes.
|
|
Sonics: 
Sonics: 
