Igor Tchetuev - Alfred Schnittke: Complete Piano Sonatas (2005)

That recordings of Alfred Schnittke's 3 piano sonatas are few & far between is understandable: technically forbidding & emotionally harrowing, the sonatas test listeners' tolerance for extraordinary violence & extenuated silence. The 3 late works share a stylistic consistency rare among the polystylistic composer's works. Here, everything is the same as before but more so: fortes are fortissimos, pianos pianissimos, allegros prestos, adagios lentos, & shifts in register are frequent & extreme. In this 2008 recording of the 3 works by Igor Tchetuev, the pianist's prodigious technique & penetrating insights make Schnittke's music clearer, but the listener's task no easier. Holding Schnittke's angular lines & circuitous arguments together is challenging -- imagine Schoenberg's harmonies joined to late Beethoven's forms -- but Tchetuev brilliantly pulls it off with playing of terrific virtuosity & tremendous intensity. Despite the music's immense expressive demands, Tchetuev's concentration never wavers & the listener is carried along by the strength of his convictions. Though these works won't be for every fan of piano music, anyone interested in post-Shostakovich Russian music will likely have to hear them. Caro Mitis' digital sound is very vivid & very present.