Chinese virtuoso a master of subtlety

By WILLIAM DART

There is much to marvel at in Yundi Li's Deutsche Grammophon recording of Chopin's Scherzi and Impromptus. This young Chinese pianist, who drew unexpected poetry from Liszt's B minor Sonata a few years ago, now confirms the style that won him the Warsaw Chopin Competition in 2000.

This 22-year-old can deliver OOS-threatening virtuosics and invest the Scherzi with a translucency that releases many inner melodies that otherwise might lie dormant.

Li is a master of rubato, the subtle fluctuations of tempo so central to Chopin's art. Through rubato, Li is able to spark a darting humour in the second Scherzo, a Lisztian grandeur in the third and Straussian shifts in the fourth.

The three Impromptus are rescued from the salon. The first, and best known, in A flat, is no rattling perpetuum mobile, but intriguingly phrased and turned. In the final G flat major work, an adventurous piece by any standards, Li seems to be telling a tale every bit as weighty as those that inspired the composer's Ballades.

Tales are also being told in a new Naxos disc of piano music by Arnold Bax (1883-1953), particularly in the two vast sonatas which remind us that Bax also had a secret literary life under the pseudonym of Dermot O'Byrne.

Bax's music has a cult following but deserves more. The seven symphonies are respected more than played, while the smaller works survive through the loyalty of individual musicians.

No composer could hope for a more fervent advocate than pianist Ashley Wass, riding Bax's rhapsodic rambles with a real Celtic fervour. The sonatas unfurl rich narratives and, thanks to an ace Naxos recording, there's a splendid range of colours - nowhere more so than in the mysterious opening of the second sonata.

With a generous playing time of over 74 minutes (compared to Li's 53), Wass also offers four shorter pieces, including the lingering Dream in Exile, a boisterous Burlesque and In a Vodka Shop, in which the composer gleefully out-Mussorgskies Mussorgsky. More Bax is promised, and I for one, can hardly wait.

* Yundi Li plays Chopin (Deutsche Grammophon 474 5162)

Arnold Bax: Piano Works 1 (Naxos 8.557439)