Szymanowski: Piano Works, Vol. 3

Classics Today

“Roscoe's full-bodied sonority and impeccable technique lovingly serve Szymanowski's kaleidoscopic, richly communicative keyboard idiom. His grand treatment of the 13th through 16th Op. 50 Mazurkas points up the music's sensual textures and rustic melodicism. A marvelous disc.”

2010

“This CD offers a cross-section of Szymanowski's styles as a composer for the keyboard, from the early First Sonata (always described as post-Chopin and post-Scriabin but, Roscoe convincingly demonstrates, no less importantly post-Liszt as well) to the pungent Mazurkas, with their flavour of Bartók as well as of late Grieg.
The Prelude and Fugue is an interesting link between that early Sonata and the Op 33 Etudes which are usually referred to as representing Szymanowski's 'impressionist' phase. Again, Roscoe makes you question this conventional description: yes, the harmonies look rather Debussian but they don't often sound that way. These very brief pieces (just over a minute on average) are studies in the conventional sense, written by one fine pianist for another, Alfred Cortot, but they're also exercises in harmonic subtlety and rich in Szymanowski's personal fantasy. The Four PolishDances inhabit the same world as the Mazurkas, and it's obvious that Roscoe enjoys open fifths and flat sevenths as much as Szymanowski did.”