- Rachmaninov: Piano Sonata #2 Inna Faliks
I have chosen the music on this CD because literature and poetry inspire me and often assist me in finding the kind of expression and colors I would like to communicate through music. Boris Pasternak’s music is inexorably linked to his poems. The strange dynamic contrasts between short phrases in the sonata seem erratic until one looks at them as if they are lines in a poem, lines with a rhythm and rhyme scheme. Boris Pasternak’s poetry moves me with its original, poignant imagery; each of his poems is a quest to connect to and to define the artistic process. This poet creates immediate and intimate contact with the reader/listener by opening and exploring his own soul — unapologetic, unsentimental and lyrical. The same immediacy and frankness permeates his youthful music. I include Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit because, as with the other works, I connect to its vivid poetic context. The sensuous Ondine, the hypnotic Le Gibet and the passionate, sad and quirky Scarbo are powerful poetic images that give life to this music. Rachmaninov ’s The Bells is one of my favorites choral- symphonic works of his. A translation of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem of the same name inspired Rachmaninov to create it. The original version of the Second Sonata, composed at the same time, exudes the same ominous colors, hypnotic luminosity, passion and pathos as the poem and the choral symphonic work, but ends with life-affirming exuberance.
-Inna Faliks, May 2009
Program
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)
Piano Sonata in b minor (1909)
Preludes (1906)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Gaspard de la Nuit (1908)
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
Piano Sonata #2 in b-flat minor, Op. 36 (Original 1913 version)
Press
American Record Guide
“I have purchased many CDs on the basis of their content. Rarely have performances measured up to the music as well as here.”
Fanfare
“Faliks has yet to become a major presence on record, but with this album and her above-mentioned Sound of Verse now out on a mainstream commercial label, I suspect that’s going to change. A wonderful release all around, and very strongly recommended.”
American Record Guide
“Mastery of the piano…A powerful pianist with technique to burn, a wonderful variety of tone colors at all dynamic levels. Her Ravel is reminiscent of Argerich EMI recording… and the Rachmaninoff reminds me of the early Van Cliburn recording made in Russia with a little more boldness.”
Gramophone Magazine
“Faliks, a Ukrainian-born American pianist, plays these (Pasternak) pieces with the same concentration and attention to detail that she applies to the Ravel-beautifully limned and paced – and to Rachmaninov’s Piano Sonata # 2 in the original 1913 version. Intensely felt, her Rachmaninoff abounds in poetic phrasing and finely gauged drama.”