Ives: Concord Sonata / Barber: Piano Sonata

Ives : Concord Sonata - Barber : Sonate pour piano / Marc-André Hamelin, piano

Marc-André Hamelin is known for his extraordinary technique that allows him to play the most difficult, demanding music with an ease and comfort level others, even many with admired technical abilities, can't match. One of the burdens of such keyboard facility is that audiences are so dazzled they don't always realize what a penetrating interpreter he is, and tend to take his brilliance for granted. This Ives-Barber disc will put that to rest. Yes, he easily meets the incredibly complex demands of the "Hawthorne" movement of the Ives Sonata and the outer movements of the Barber Sonata (the final fugue inspired by Horowitz, who premiered the work). But one comes away from these performances in awe of the poetic lyricism displayed by Hamelin, the reflective portions of the Ives registering their profundity. Overall, he fearlessly adopts faster tempos than usual, to the benefit of structural clarity and visceral excitement of both works. Hamelin's are now the preferred versions of both of these American masterpieces. --Dan Davis