The piano sonatas of Shostakovich (his Second) and Frank Bridge are respectively dedicated to friends lost in war, and make memorable use of waltz and march forms. Otherwise they have little in common, and, to my knowledge, have not before been coupled on disc. Yet they make for a substantial and enjoyable pairing. Listeners familiar with Sally Pinkas’s sensitive and cultivated recorded Fauré sojourns (on MSR and Musica Omnia) will again encounter a virtuoso who draws attention to the music first and foremost. She brings out the wistfulness of the opening Allegretto in the Shostakovich sonata, allowing the busy contrapuntal writing its conversational due, although she doesn’t match either the airy spring of Emil Gilels’s classic RCA studio recording (11/66) or Konstantin Scherbakov’s crisp détaché articulation (Naxos). The austerity and calm sustaining aura of her Largo complements Peter Donohoe’s jewel-like touch and freer phrasing (Signum, 12/17). Pinkas holds the long and arguably diffuse third movement together but the rapid obsessive rhythms come off heavily and rigidly compared to her competitors.

Bridge’s gritty, harmonically gnarly and orchestrally evocative Piano Sonata requires nothing less than so fervently committed a musician and complete technician as Sally Pinkas. In the main, her interpretation splits the difference between Mark Bebbington’s largely spacious and granitic conception (Somm, 10/06) and Kathryn Stott’s leaner intensity (Sony, 9/91), although the sonic superiority of Alexander Soares’s recent recording (Rubicon, 10/21) comes into its own in the third-movement Allegro non troppo’s resonant chordal climaxes. However, Meral Guneyman’s 1981 version (originally released on American Finnadar and now available as a download), though sonically on the dry side, remains unmatched for this pianist’s top-to-bottom textural clarity, plus her sense of perspective and sheer virtuoso abandon. Pinkas provides informative and well-written booklet annotations.