Piano Sonata No 1, Op 28. Etudes-tableaux, Op 39 Yuri Paterson-Olenich pf Prometheus Editions 0 0 EDITION007 (83' • DDD)

Having given us a Scriabin recording of rare commitment, Yuri PatersonOlenich continues with a two-disc Rachmaninov set of even greater poetic force and conviction. Everything is reconsidered in playing devoid of all easy options, intent only to cast a burning light on a dark and turbulent inner spirit. Powerful and measured, Paterson-Olenich's playing allows every one of the composer's maelstrom of notes to tell, and the First Sonata's magnificent if sprawling edifice is lit by one revelation after another. Here again, there is none of that impersonal, hard-bitten brilliance of the jet-setting virtuoso (Weissenberg on DG, 4/90 — nla) and when you listen to the first movement development (like being at the centre of a vortex) and final pages given with such breadth and understanding you are hearing a pianist born for Rachmaninov.

The Op 39 Etudes-tableaux, always among the composer's richest offerings, present the same moving force and involvement. No 1 in

C minor is again so individually characterised (no "knife through butter" in a more familiar virtuoso style) while No 6, launched with an exceptionally menacing opening, is all snarls and snapping teeth (it is based on the legend of Red Riding Hood). He makes it clear that No 7 is among the most audacious and indelibly Russian of all Rachmaninov's works and throughout this entire programme you are made frighteningly aware of Rachmaninov's demons, of his confession that "sometimes I think someone will come down the chimney and murder me".

All this, superbly recorded and with accompanying notes by the pianist, forms a deeply personal tribute to a still misunderstood composer. No lover of Rachmaninov should be without it. Bryce Morrison