Rachmaninov's Preludes
Rachmaninov's Preludes
The Gramophone Choice
Preludes – Op 3 No 2; Op 23; Op 32
Steven Osborne pf
Hyperion CDA67700 (79’ · DDD) Buy from Amazon
It’s all too easy to coarsen Rachmaninov’s melodic genius with an overtly applied emotionalism, its clearly drawn lines becoming smudged. But Osborne conveys both the monumentality of these pieces, even the most fleeting, and their very human qualities. It’s rare to find the balance so acutely achieved. The composer himself, of course, knew how to achieve that equilibrium, but then he had a head start.
Yet this is only a starting-point – the detail is equally delectable: the way that Osborne shapes the tear-stained melody of Op 23 No 4, for instance, and picks out the line from the dark, bustling figuration of Op 23 No 7 or the left-hand countermelody of Op 23 No 8. Then, in the Op 32 set, there’s the simplicity of the second, with its incessant tolling around the note C, through to the meditative quality of No 10, the line rising out of the depths as sonorously as Debussy’s cathedral. Another fascination is the way Osborne’s range of touch puts the Preludes into such a clear historical context.
Osborne throws down the gauntlet with a towering C sharp minor Prelude: it’s arguably too slow but makes an apt curtain-raiser on a set that glories in the magnificence of this music. And while there’s no empty barnstorming on display here, that’s not to say the technical challenges are shirked or underplayed in any way. There are few pianists who offer such range and depth of palette.
