Search - Sergey Prokofiev, Boris Berman :: Prokofiev: Complete Piano Music, Vol. 2

I Always Come Back to This One

Eugene G. Barnes | Dunn Loring, VA USA | 03/17/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I buy lots and lots of classical CDs, and there are very few in the category of "I play them a lot." Maybe 5 or 10 max. This is one of them. The Visions Fugitives are a revelation. The Sonata #7 is always a surprise and a delight. This guy Berman plays Prokofiev like I don't know what. He plays Prokofiev better than Prokofiev. It's scary, how habit-forming this CD is. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Echo Chamber

R. Williams | Los Angeles, CA United States | 01/19/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Was thrilled to see the other reviews here. I happened to come in here to write a review because I put this disc on for the first time in ages. I was insanely obsessed with this one for a long time. The Visions are mindblowing and Berman's version just blows the doors off every other one I've heard. He plays these pieces as the spooky, incredibly modern pieces that they are, mixing muddy, dissonant grumblings with hammering lyricism, holding the tempos in the hypnotic range. Prokofiev often had more musical ideas in a single piece than a lot of composers could muster in their lives. Visions ranks with the Piano Concerto #3 as one of the premiere assemblages of brilliant fragments in the history of music. And there are so many of them that when they're all over, you'll be sad, but you can just go back to the beginning again.One other note here. Schoenberg and his ilk did a lot to discredit the modern Russians, claiming that they were just hacking out forms that had been long ago interred by more advanced practitioners (like himself of course). A lot of that has worn off, but revisionism has still not landed Prokofiev his just due. Nevermind his lyricism, which is a match for anyone else, but many of his ideas and forms are very interestingly modern in other ways. For instance, he was a master of idiom and turning pieces inside out based on their structural underpinnings. His first symphony was composed as an exercise based on the thought 'If Haydn were still alive, what would he compose?' and Prokofiev's answer was much the same thing, with a few amendments to his musical language. (A wonderful counter to Shoenberg's cretinous progressive/positivist views of musical history.) Also, many of his compositions use popular idioms and take them apart, turning them into farces, in a very interesting way. Ravel's La Valse got a lot of attention for lampooning the Waltz, but Prokofiev wrote some of the most beautiful waltzes ever, and yet they are tinged with irony, nay parody. This practice is on display in these pieces, and the result is similar to what became the dominant mode of exploration during the Cool Jazz period: taking popular pieces and pulling them apart and reconstructing them in other forms."

Masterful and sublime

R. Williams | 03/30/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Berman's interpretations are, as another reviewer opined, probably even better than what Prokofiev intended himself. The Visions fugitives are brief, flitting glimpses of Prokofiev's genius, and the 7th Sonata is churning as well. An amazing recording, and a great series"