The second volume of Murray McLachlan's valuable survey of Kabalevsky's piano music covers repertoire which is less well known but which is no less revealing of his character and development.
Composed in 1958 for the first Tchaikovsky Competition, the A minor Rondo is an unashamedly 'effective concert piece'. By this date Kabalevsky was well into the officially laid down rut where he would remain until his death in 1987, and the Rondo comes across as a comfortable piece of Bourgeois Escapism—which is precisely why, in a topsy-turvy world, it was so well adapted to the tenets of Socialist Realism.
But then the Four Preludes and the First Sonata, composed some 30 years earlier, show a very different side to his personality. As McLachlan writes, the influence of Kabalevsky's teacher is unmistakable, though the first of the Preludes could well pass as a wistful appendix to Prokofiev's Visions fugitives; and if there is little individuality on which to base an argument for repertoire status, the craftsmanship and idiomatic piano writing are none the less admirable.
The G minor Sonatina is far more rarely heard than its C major companion, and there is no pretending that it has anything like the same freshness or inventive flair. But the Second Sonata (of 1945) is another matter. This must be Kabalevsky's most ambitious solo piano work; its reliance on Prokofiev's Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Sonatas is plain to hear, as is the melancholy tone which contributed to Kabalevsky's being included in the ranks of so-called Formalists at the 1948 persecution (according to most accounts he managed to manoeuvre his way out and have Gavriil Popov put in his place). The ideas may lack the newly-minted quality of Prokofiev's, but at least they do not kowtow to convention.
As ever Murray McLachlan is a reliable, even-tempered and unidiosyncratic guide - welcome qualities in such unfamiliar repertoire. I await with interest the day when he throws off his mild-mannered image and dares to soar up, up, and away. Olympia's recording is somewhat overresonant, not in an unpleasant way, but tending to generalize the experience.
Bryce Morrison
Gramophone, May 1993