Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No 3
Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No 3
The Gramophone Choice
Coupled with Suite No 2 for Two Pianos, Op 17*
Martha Argerich, *Nelson Freire pfs Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra / Riccardo Chailly
Philips 464 732-2PM (62' · DDD) Recorded live 1982. Buy from Amazon
Rarely in her extraordinary career has Argerich sounded more exhaustingly restless and quixotic, her mind and fingers flashing with reflexes merely dreamt of by other less phenomenally endowed pianists. Yet her Rachmaninov is full of surprises, her opening Allegro almost convivial until she meets directions such as più vivo or veloce, where the tigress in her shows her claws and the music is made to seethe and boil. The cadenza (the finer and more transparent of the two) rises to the sort of climax that will make all pianists’ hearts beat faster and her first entry in the Intermezz’ interrupts the orchestra’s musing with the impatience of a hurricane. But throughout these pages it’s almost as if she’s searching for music that will allow her virtuosity its fullest scope. In the finale she finds it, accelerating out of the second movement with a sky-rocketing propulsion. Here the music races like wildfire, with a death-defying turn of speed at 7'21" and an explosive energy throughout that must have left audience, conductor and orchestra feeling as if hit by some seismic shock-wave.
The Historic Choice
Coupled with Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1
Vladimir Horowitz pf New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra / Sir John Barbirolli
APR mono APR5519 (66' · ADD) Recorded live 1940-41. Buy from Amazon
This is the Rachmaninov Third to end all Rachmaninov Thirds, a performance of such super-human pianistic aplomb, pace and virtuosity that it makes all comparisons, save with Horowitz himself, a study in irrelevance. Horowitz’s 1930 recording with Albert Coates made Arthur Rubinstein pale with envy; goodness knows how he’d have reacted had he heard Horowitz and Barbirolli! Taken from a 1941 New York broadcast (with apologies from the producer for snaps, crackles, pops and the like) Horowitz’s tumultuous, near-apocalyptic brilliance includes all his unique and tirelessly debated attributes; his swooning rubato, thundering bass and splintering treble, his explosive attack, his super-erotic inflexions and turns of phrase. Try the skittering scherzando variation just before the close of the central Intermezzo and note how the pianist’s velocity eclipses even his legendary recording with Fritz Reiner. This ultimate wizard of the keyboard is in expansive mood in the Tchaikovsky. There are ample rewards, too, for those who rejoice in Horowitz at his most clamorous, for the thunder and lightning of this ‘Tornado from the Steppes’. The performance ends in what can only be described as a scream of octaves and an outburst by an audience driven near to hysteria. Barbirolli and the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra are equal to just about every twist and turn of their volatile soloist’s argument and so these performances (and most notably the finale of the Rachmaninov) are simply beyond price.
Additional Recommendations
Coupled with Piano Concerto No 4
Leif Ove Andsnes pf London Symphony Orchestra / Antonio Pappano
EMI 640516-2 (67’ · DDD) Buy from Amazon
‘It’s a sensual pleasure to play,’ Leif Ove Andsnes says of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto, and if judicious sensuality is indeed one vital quality that manifests itself in his new recording, another is the impressive physicality of the performance. The sheer act of getting round the notes in this notoriously difficult and stamina-sapping work is not perhaps something that unduly challenges a pianist of Andsnes’s stature, but a crucial facet that distinguishes his interpretation is the way that he so securely harnesses energy and at the same time allows the music to voice itself so poetically. He, Pappano and the orchestra breathe together here. If Andsnes’s playing is arresting for the quantity of relevant detail that he conveys, so too is the orchestra’s, though the fine balance ensures that the perspective is rounded rather than pitching instrumental solos into the foreground. Moreover, for all the lucidity of individual passages, there is also a broad and deeply satisfying overall span to the interpretation, a firm sense of direction that recognises the music’s rhythmic ebb and flow but which has its structural keystones clearly in view.
For the Fourth, Andsnes has opted for the final, generally played 1941 revision of a work that gave Rachmaninov years of trouble after its initial airing in 1927, and it is a performance in which grandeur, wistfulness and incisiveness coalesce to striking effect. The strengths of the collaboration in the Third are equally in evidence in the Fourth, together with an impulse that reveals the music’s blend of Romanticism and modernity with exhilarating freshness.
Piano Concerto No 3*. Cello Sonata in G minor, Op 19 – Andante (arr Volodos). Sérénade in B flat minor, Op 3 No 5. Romance in F minor, Op 10 No 6. Preludes in F minor, Op 32 No 6. Prelude in D minor. Etude-tableau in C sharp minor, Op 33 No 9
Arcadi Volodos pf *Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / James Levine
Sony SK64384 (61' · DDD) *Recorded live 1999. Buy from Amazon
Straight into the top flight of Rachmaninov Thirds goes Arcadi Volodos’s recording, made live at the Berlin Philharmonie. So many things about it are distinguished and thrilling. Volodos’s phrasing is consummately tasteful, all the way through to the cadenza. There his textures are superbly graded, his tone never glaring, even under the pressure of torrents of notes. All’s well, in fact, until midway in the first-movement cadenza, where he inserts a hiatus before the Allegro molto. It sounds terribly calculated, as does the way he steers the cadenza towards its main climax. Just a whiff of self-consciousness can be enough to cancel out a host of poetic or virtuoso touches.
Though this isn’t a world-beater, it’s certainly one to assess at the highest level. Nothing but praise can be showered upon the BPO for their wonderfully cushioned accompaniment, and upon Levine for his avoidance of all the usual pitfalls. The piano is quite forwardly balanced, so that every tiniest note emerges bright as a new pin; and, given how wonderfully Volodos shapes everything, it’s fine, although you do occasionally feel that you aren’t hearing the orchestra in its full glory.
As for the solo pieces, the Cello Sonata arrangement is a marvel. It floats ecstatically, with air seemingly blowing through the textures as if through a Chekhovian country house on a cool summer evening. It’s heavenly, and the other solos are little short of that.
Coupled with Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1 Kabalevsky Rondo, Op 59
Van Cliburn pf Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra / Kyrill Kondrashin
Testament mono SBT1440 (80’ · ADD) Recorded live 1958. Buy from Amazon
Here, published for the first time, are the performances that sealed the Texan’s first prize in the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, earning him a ticker-tape welcome back home and the Soviet bureaucrats red faces. The strings are acidic, the solo cello sounds like an alto sax, the piano is frequently clunky-toned, the Moscow coughers are out in force and Cliburn has his fair share of fluffs and fudges – but none of this matters. There is a palpable sense of occasion, one in which all concerned sense they are witnessing history in the making as Cliburn gives the performances of his life. No wonder the audience erupts after the first movement of the Tchaikovsky. The allegro vivace assai section of the slow movement is taken at a daring pace, while the final pages are as thrilling as any on disc. The second item on the programme was the Rondo by Kabalevsky, a pièce imposé written especially for the occasion. On this disc, Testament places it as the final work after the Rachmaninov. It’s hardly a masterpiece but Cliburn dignifies it by treating it like one. And then Rach Three. Despite the sonic imperfections and some scarily uncoordinated moments, this one punches a hardly less emotional impact than Cliburn’s astounding RCA recording. The first-movement cadenza (Cliburn plays the bigger of the two) will make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck; the finale’s peroration will sweep you away. Whatever that magical, indefinable gift is, Cliburn had it in 1958, his annus mirabilis.
