Rachmaninoff, Scriabin & Medtner: Piano Sonatas

Album review

Pianist Kenny Broberg emerged from the University of Houston's music program and took prizes in the big two competitions emphasizing pure Russian-school virtuosity, the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas, and the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia. Now part of the roster of the Steinway & Sons label and splendidly recorded by that label's engineering team at Sono Luminus studios in Virginia, he offers as a debut recording three notorious Russian finger-crunchers, the Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 36, of Rachmaninov, the Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 53, of Scriabin (which Sviatoslav Richter called the most difficult work in the piano repertory), and the Piano Sonata No. 2 in E minor, Op. 25, No. 2, of Nikolay Medtner, with a short Medtner piece to ring down the curtain. There is a lot to like here: the crisp, properly edgy tone in the Medtner sonata (which is not as commonly played as the other works), the clean execution of the Scriabin, but really, the best news is Broberg's careful structuring of the melodic material, even amidst the clatter of percussive, rapid runs. Sample the very beginning of the first movement of the Rachmaninov sonata, where the keyboard-spanning heroics instantly command the listener's attention. This is a major pianist to watch in the music of the Russian school, which hasn't had a big champion in the U.S. lately.

© James Manheim /TiVo