Vladimir Bakk

Have any of you heard of Vladimir Bakk? What do you think of him? In my modest opinion he had an incredible musicality and super-b technique Scriabin Sonata No. 9: Chopin Ballade No. 3 (just audio): See you! Very interesting. To be honest, my first thought was "can't this guy count?" I don't understand what the hell he was trying to do in the first few bars of the Scriabin and think it really stretches the limits of what can be called "rubato". Many interesting things though! I like the way he blends sounds in the pedal. It certainly picked up after that curious opening. I would say he's a little unsophisticated about how he directs moments of extreme energy though- properly whacking things out sometimes rather than using the sophisticated contrasts Horowitz used to project things. I found the last movement of his Rachmaninoff sonata rather ugly and typical of the "professional" but extremely heavy-handed modern Russian school.

I only listened to the Scriabin. He does bring it one good quality - his interpretation is somehow a search. He has pretty good technique, well-described by Cziffra, and he uses it to create a 9th that somehow is flexible, evanescent - it has something of the uncapturable that I think Scriabin wanted to be brought to it... AFF