This disc is a healthy reminder of something that should hardly need saying that great pianism does not consist of immaculate technique plus some added extras; rather, and particularly in the late romantic and twentieth-century virtuoso repertoire, it has to do with the quality of expressive abandon, plus the confidence that the technical foundations are firm enough to keep the main lines of the music in place. Even in his prime, as he was in the late-1950s, Gilels could unleash fistfuls of wrong notes, even armfuls of them in the Petrushka Suite. But the sweep and intoxication he manages to communicate are entirely idiomatic and of the kind no every-note-in-its-place performance could hope to convey.

The Petrushka pieces are the obvious highlight. Gilels adds his own transcription of the Moor's tableau and the Ballerina's Dance, deletes the Masqueraders' Music from "The Shrovetide Fair" and includes instead the scene of the Peasant with the Bear. In the most demanding pages he falls well short of the streamlined acrobatics of Pollini (DG) and Lortie (Chandos) in their studio recordings; but his accentuation and colouring are wonderfully evocative, almost uncannily so in the Moor's musicaI could almost have sworn that Stravinsky's harp, pizzicato strings and woodwind solos were present (track 7, from 0A47B). This is a performance no connoisseur of piano playing should miss.

In the Prokofiev and Scriabin sonatas Gilels's quiet playing is no less mesmeric, and his lightness of touch towards the end of the Prokofiev is also breathtaking. For me the closing stages of the Scriabin cross the dividing line between legitimate freneticism and messiness, however, and there is a big memory lapse at 4A59B. Moshei Vainberg's Sonata is as effective as you would expect from one of Shostakovich's most talented and prolific pupils; in the last analysis it may have to count as a near-miss rather than an unqualified success, but it still provides a splendid vehicle for Gilels. Finally Medtner's Sonata is given precisely the kind of unbridled expressive advocacy likely to win converts for the music. A higher than normal volume setting is needed to get the best from the rather shallow, distantly balanced recordings.

David J. Fanning
(From: Gramophone, April 1993)