Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 1
Beethoven's First Piano Concerto
Gramophone Choice
Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2
Yefim Bronfman (pf) Tonhalle Orchestra, Zürich / David Zinman
Arte Nova 82876 82587-2 (67' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
This Zürich performance of the First Concerto is beautifully articulated. True, there are moments of grandeur but the overall impression is of a poised, at times chamber-like traversal, with sculpted pianism and crisply pointed orchestral support. The sensation of shared listening, between Bronfman and the players and between the players themselves, is at its most acute in the First Concerto’s Largo, which although kept on a fairly tight rein is extremely supple (the woodwinds in particular excel). In the finale, Bronfman and the Tonhalle provide a clear, shapely aural picture. Bronfman’s Second Concerto has the expected composure, the many running passages in the first movement polished if relatively understated. Again the slow movement is full of unaffected poetry and the finale (with the odd added embellishment) is appropriately buoyant – has Bronfman ever played better?
Additional Recommendation
Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 3
Emil Gilels (pf) New Philharmonia Orchestra / Sir Adrian Boult
ICA Classics ICAC5000 (70' · ADD). Recorded live 1967. Buy from Amazon
These performances were taken live from the Royal Festival Hall in 1967 and reveal playing of a transparency, elegance and calm that were no less characteristic of Gilel’s later career. True, his phenomenal command is much in evidence in the finales of both concertos, where the music quickens into life; and in, say, the presto coda of No 3, he may well cause lesser pianists to pale with envy. Yet even in this concerto a reserve hangs over the turbulent pages of ‘Beethoven’s C minor of life’ (EM Forster). Everything falls naturally into place, unforced and not distorted by bluster or idiosyncrasy. Gilels makes the supposed division between Mozart’s Apollonian genius and Beethoven’s Dionysian genius dissolve in a trice.
Others may turn to the more overt, spine-tingling vitality of Serkin or the irrepressible joie de vivre of Argerich but, for unalloyed dignity and composure, these performances are hard to equal. Sir Adrian Boult’s gentlemanly, unobtrusive beat is a further asset in these finely transferred recordings.
