Tamara Stefanovich records “Organised Delirium” for Pentatone. Piano Sonatas. Boulez to Scarlatti.

This eighty-three-minute recital opens with Pierre Boulez’s half-hour (if a little longer here), immediately arresting, Second Piano Sonata – volatile, mercurial, ever-inventive – stunningly played by Tamara Stefanovich, remarkable virtuosity and musical conviction, matching Pollini’s celebrated DG version and maybe even more revealing. Stefanovich goes on to present Hanns Eisler’s Opus One Sonata as changeable, playful and Bergian, worth discovering if not known, and she’s on top of Bartók’s powerful rhythms, tempos well-judged to accommodate accelerations, and the chant-like middle movement is just as compelling, as is the modernism and frenzy of Shostakovich No.1. To conclude, a Sonata by Scarlatti, and why not (no ghettos), in B-minor, Kk87, raptly contemplative. Mind-stretching music, fantastic performances, superb sound on Pentatone PTC 5187 358.