By the time she was 13 Madeleine Forte had studied, astonishingly, with both Wilhelm Kempff, who told her to relax and to play like "a little bird," and by Alfred Cortot, who taught her by staring soulfully into her eyes while playing wrong notes. (He was elderly at the time, and also taught her to play legato and to spend an inordinate time working on the pedals.) She has been a performer, a teacher, and a publishing scholar. Reviewing her previous Connoisseur Society disc, a Ravel recital, Peter Burwasser mentions her "quicksilver approach" and her "emphasis on texture and color, subdued dynamics, and a treble-dominated tonal balance."

Well, she has taken a different approach on these large-scaled Chopin masterpieces. She plays with a large, full-bodied tone, with great power and even majesty. At the same time Forte is able to "transmit" (a T. S. Eliot phrase) the quicksilver passages convincingly, with the beautifully realized legato on which Cortot insisted. The dancing Scherzo of the sonata is an example, and so is the impressively powerful and precisely played opening of the Scherzo in B Minor. These robust performances are nonetheless nuanced, controlled, and unaffected. Beautifully recorded, they should be heard.

Michael Ullman