Composers: Shostakovich
Compositions: Piano sonatas, 24 Preludes
Performers: Andrey Gugnin p
Catalogue Number: Hyperion CDA68267

At the Sydney International Piano Competition, many competitors from the former Soviet bloc have been placed amongst the prize winners. The competition’s most recent winner is the fresh-faced Andrey Gugnin who turned in an exemplary performance of the concluding Precipitato from Prokofiev’s exciting, though thorny Seventh Sonata. In that short performance, Gugnin gave the most finely detailed performance I’ve yet heard of the work – and I am taking the likes of Richter, Horowitz and Gould into account here. There...