With the complete sonatas of Prokofiev and Miaskovsky already under his belt, Murray McLachlan was a natural choice for the latest two volumes in Olympia’s valuable Vainberg cycle. All six piano sonatas are expertly crafted works, pianistically effective and strong on first-time impact. Gilels was an advocate of the first four and dedicatee of No. 4; No. 5 is billed by Olympia as a world premiere recording.

Sonatas Nos. 1 to 3 date from the early 1940s and are somewhat in the shadow of Prokofiev and Shostakovich (the latter Vainberg’s mentor, friend and occasional playing partner). The same influences persist in Nos. 4 to 6, composed in the late 1950s, but by and large these later sonatas are more individual and memorable. For some unexplained reason Vainberg composed no further piano sonatas in the last 35 years of his life while continuing his steady output of estimable symphonies and quartets.

I was particularly impressed by the Fourth Sonata. From its harried opening, in a half-concealed Jewish idiom, through a determined anti-scherzo and gravely introspective slow movement, to a folksy finale with a touchingly restrained conclusion, it communicates a strong sense of individual identity and reason for being. The three-movement Fifth Sonata is even more uncompromising, with a passacaglia akin to one of Shostakovich’s more epic fugues, a long, brooding slow movement evoking the chorale of Bartok’s Third Piano Concerto, and finally an elusive rondo, deeply impregnated with Jewish dance intonations. I’m sure this work will grow still more impressive with repeated hearing. No. 6 has its disconcerting moments - the second movement sounds uncomfortably close to Shostakovich’s D major Fugue - but its culmination is irresistible.

The unpretentious Easy Pieces are welcome as fillers. 'The Dolls' is particularly haunting: a ghost of a Chopin waltz, most affectingly played. In fact Murray McLachlan does all this music sterling service. I was never in doubt about his sympathy with and understanding of the idiom or his determination to put it across with conviction. As to subtlety of colour and expansiveness of tone he remains somewhat limited: loud climaxes in particular tend to become strident and monochrome. It does not help matters that the recording is on the close and dry side, and the instrument’s treble register becomes somewhat detuned in the earlier sonatas. Never mind. These discs should give much pleasure to anyone interested in Soviet music or the byways of twentieth-century piano repertoire.

David J. Fanning
(From: Gramophone, December 1998)