As hard as it is to believe, I seem to have this CD before Don Satz (well,
it was on sale:) My first impressions are very good:  Ashkenazy's version
seems to have cured all the things I don't like in Nikolaeva's Hyperion
recording.  First of all, the sound is much better; it is in fact close to
perfect as solo piano recordings go (Decca has a good track record for
excellent piano sound, at least in recordings made in the last few years).
The sound has great clarity and just the right amount of resonance for a
realistic "living-room" size hall, there is plenty of dynamic range from
ppp to fff without any deterioration in clarity and detail (by contrast, I
can only listen to Nikolaeva's version at low volumes, at high volumes it
starts to "ring" in my ears).

In interpretation, Ashkenazy sounds like he has thought long and deep
about these works; this is no casual read-through by a virtuoso.  Not that
the virtuoso element is missing:  his control and total ease in fast
passages beats Nikolaeva (who sometimes sounds like she is barely keeping
up with the metronome).  I am pleasantly surprised at the clarity of his
lines in the fugues; again helped by the clear recording, it is much easier
to follow the fugues (and the counterpoint in general) with Ashkenazy
than with Nikolaeva (why wasn't he this good with the fugal finale in his
Hammerklavier recording? but of course that's in a lot worse sound than
here).  Overall there is a lot of detail which Askenazy brings out that's
obscured in the Nikolaeva.  In addition, I like his choices of tempo a lot
better too (compare the timings:  Ashkenazy 142 mins, Nikolaeva 166 mins).
Nikolaeva has a tendency to slow down to a crawl in the slower preludes,
and not pushing fast enough in some of the fast ones.  She is also
rythmically not as precise.  Ashkenazy removes the slack and as a result
the improvisatory, "day-dreaming" quality of some of the slow pieces is not
as prominent; instead we get a tight, well-thought-out musical argument;
the balance between intellectual and emotional content is restored to a
Bach-like level, as it should be.

So am I throwing away my Nikolaeva set? I might well do so, although
only more time will tell.

Ulvi Yurtsever
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