(Grigory Sokolov | 2022 | Live) Purcell: Suite & Chaconne

Looking back at 2022, I can easily name the greatest musical experience I had. I’ve dearly loved the Purcells Grigory Sokolov is playing this season. His selection consists of 17 pieces, which make up three keyboard suites, a group of pieces of folk-like character, a Chaconne, a very English Ground, as well as a minor surprise I’ll let remain such for those who haven’t yet heard the programme. As music the works are almost entirely biphonic, and the pieces within the suites came across more like poetry than music (aside from the preludes, which are just that, like Händel’s). Throughout they betray a spirit of rare gentleness and nobility, whose keyboard music is unusually intimate, more narrating than melodious, and lamentably ’underworked’ compared to that of his French and German counterparts. That notwithstanding it shows every sign of coming from a great composer. He speaks and recites wonderfully in the G minor Corant, shows ability for complex thought in the following Sarabande, and the D minor Suite you hear here has poetry so gentle it almost had me in tears before the end. Thanks to Sokolov’s extraordinary intelligence it’s like having him right in front of you, speaking to you with utmost eloquence and care, in words you do not know, and yet with a meaning which is profoundly clear. Following the Suite is a Chaconne written in the form of a musical escalator, demonstrating he can do intellectual constructs as well. What I take with me above all from the half however is the opportunity to become better acquainted with one of the most beautiful souls in all of the arts, whose eloquence and ability to write music which naturally behaves like a language, I feel, was approached only by Nicola Matteis in his own time, and would not be properly matched until Fryderyk Chopin some seven generations later. Henry Purcell (1659-1695) Suite No.7 in D minor, 00:00 - I. Almand 04:18 - II. Corant 06:06 - III. Hornpipe 06:55 - Chaconne in G minor, Grigory Sokolov, piano Source: Audience Recording -------------------- Sokolov’s pages: