By the time he made these recordings, all three of the sonatas had been in Sviatoslav Richter’s repertory for years. He had first performed Tchaikovsky’s Sonata in G major in 1942, recording it in Moscow in 1956. His recordings of the music of Prokofiev are the stuff of legend. He had just four days to learn the Seventh Sonata for its first performance in early 1943. Richter spoke of the work reflecting ‘murderous forces unleashed’ and his 1958 recording is a graphic realisation of the sentiment. The Ninth Sonata was dedicated to him and its ‘radiant, simple, even intimate’ quality is here perfectly realised.

Reissue producer and audio restoration engineer: Ward Marston.