In Memory of Terence Judd

On this CD:

1. Les jeux d'eaux à la Ville d'Este, for piano (Années III/4), S. 163/4 (LW A283/4) Les Jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este
Composed by Franz Liszt
Performed by Terence Judd

2. Venezia e Napoli II (3), for piano (Années, supplement to II), S. 162 (LW A197)
Composed by Franz Liszt
Performed by Terence Judd

3. Piano Sonata No.1, Op. 22
Composed by Alberto Ginastera
Performed by Terence Judd

4. Sonata, for piano, Op. 26
Composed by Samuel Barber
Performed by Terence Judd

5. Prelude & Fugue for piano No. 15 in D flat major, Op. 87/15
Composed by Dmitry Shostakovich
Performed by Terence Judd

6. Islamey--Oriental Fantasy, for piano
Composed by Mily Balakirev
Performed by Terence Judd

7. Miroirs, for piano (or orchestra) Oiseaux tristes
Composed by Maurice Ravel
Performed by Terence Judd

Editorial Reviews
From International Record Review - subscribe now
Before his tragic early death in 1979 Terence Judd had already established himself as one of the starriest talents of his generation. I heard him twice in concert, and memories of his Prokofiev Third Concerto and solo Liszt are undimmed. It was the unforced eloquence and natural, unfussy authority that struck me most forcibly. There was virtuosity too, but it was placed at the service of the music rather than of a 'performerly' ego. It seemed that Judd was born to play the piano, and news of his suicide at the age of 22 (a detail curiously missing from the Chandos booklets and even from the article on him in Grove) came as an appalling shock.Both the Tchaikovsky and the Prokofiev concertos are here taken from the finals of the 1978 Tchaikovsky Competition. Avoiding the temptation to play to the gallery, Judd's Tchaikovsky thrills by its sheer unstoppable momentum; the fantasy he brings to the big first-movement cadenza is the more effective for his comparative straightforwardness earlier on. In the slow movement's central prestissimo Judd comes off the rails for a few bars. But he soon straightens himself out, and his exuberance in the main theme of the finale is second to none. If he gets a little ahead of the orchestra in the later stages, that is mainly a case of the Moscow Philharmonic failing to disguise the fact that they have played the piece several hundred times too often. In all three movements of the Prokofiev, Judd shows a natural flair and command that again compel attention, without need for exaggeration or gimmickry of any kind. Few performances are as ideally paced as this one, accommodating the full range of Prokofievian character without losing a compelling continuous flow. Allowances occasionally have to be made for frayed edges in the orchestral textures – the castanet player is asleep on the job at his first entry, for instance. The recorded balance for both concertos has the piano unrealistically forward, but Judd's playing can certainly take the close scrutiny.There is an almost unearthly purity to Judd's solo Liszt, something angelic that transcends mere personality and rhetoric. For the moment only Richter and Erwin Nyiregyházi suggest themselves as useful points of comparison. In the heat of the moment a few things go astray in the 'Tarantella' from Venezia e Napoli, but that is part and parcel of the sheer abandon of the playing. The Ginastera and Barber sonatas represent probably the most successful attempts to emulate the success of Prokofiev's wartime sonatas, and Judd brings to them all his characteristic focused energy, without a trace of bluff or bluster. Maybe he would have gone on to find even more colour and depth in them, but even as it is, they stand up beside the best on record. The Shostakovich Prelude and Fugue and Islamey show that when he chose, he could storm barns with the best of them, and the Shostakovich in particular feels like the release of pent-up passions. Ravel's birdscape makes a haunting conclusion to an outstanding disc. In general the ambience for the solo pieces is on the dry side, and Islamey sounds disappointingly distant. Otherwise the recording quality is perfectly acceptable. David Fanning