"Yet another revealing collection of marvellous performances by the great Jascha Spivakovsky", writes Mark Ainley in his notes for this ninth instalment of music played by Jascha Spivakovsky, a pianist whose reputation continues to grow with every release. Feted in his day as one of the world's great pianists, he was regarded as the "finest living interpreter of Brahms, and it's Brahms' Piano Sonata No. 3 which lies at the heart of this release, taken from a BBC broadcast made in 1953.
"The centrepiece of this disc is a stirring account of Brahms’ titanic Sonata No.3 in F Minor, a key work in Spivakovsky’s repertoire. The second movement was one of his favourite works in the entire piano literature, which might easily be surmised when listening to his poetic reading: time stands still with his magical pacing and sumptuous phrasing. The entire performance is grandly conceived, his noble approach never tipping into the bombast often heard in the work, thanks to his lyrical phrasing and transparent textures."
The Brahms is not the only sonata here - we also have Kabalevsky's Third, alongside music by a number of other composers, including Bach, Debussy, Rachmaninov and - a new one for Pristine - the Norwegian composer Harald Saeverud, whose two compositions represented here in include a piece dedicated to Spivakovsky.