Olli Mustonen has assembled a disc from
Prokofiev's piano transcriptions of the Cinderella ballet music, Music for Children, and a couple of other pieces.
Mustonen's articulation certainly brings out the playfulness of the music. It is agile, bright, and lively, each note clear, even in the moodier movements where a little more connection of notes in certain parts might be expected in order to intensify both the emotional content of the music and that quintessential
Prokofiev contrast between energetic percussion and melodic lyricism. Music for Children is more direct and simply stated, so
Mustonen's clarity serves it very well. He does have an eloquent way of using dynamics constantly to shade the music in all the works here. The sound level of the recording is a bit quieter than most Classical recordings, so the volume needs to be raised slightly to hear the wide range of his dynamics. There is one maddening thing about this disc: the accompanying liner notes do not explain the programming of the disc. They talk about the music, when it was written, what it is trying to convey, what to listen for in it. But nothing about why
Mustonen is only doing nine of the 10 pieces of Opus 97, only three of the six in Opus 102, or why just the Gavotte from Opus 32 and just the Prelude from Opus 12. It implies a connection between Cinderella, a children's story, and Music for Children, but gives no other clues as to the reasoning behind the selections. That kind of omission tends to alienate the listener from the performer, no matter how good the performance.