Although there are several available versions coupling these two favourite warhorse concertos, none is an obvious classic (perhaps Cliburn on RCA is the nearest). So, to combine a Russian orchestra and conductor with top-flight modern recording quality and a soloist presumably keen to make an international impact may not have been such a bad idea. But I'm not sure it has quite gone to plan.
No complaints, or at least only tiny ones, about the orchestra. The Russian woodwind in particular have outgrown their once legendary rawness, without losing their intensely communicative style. And the brass insist quite properly on their conjugal rights, only occasionally straying into downright blatancy. Under Svetlanov the orchestral tuttis have an almost tangible electricity.
But oh dear, the recording quality. Big and blowsy from the word go, its excessive resonance soon becomes a trial (try the last few bars of the Tchaikovsky first movement if you want a sample of its unpleasant aftertaste). ''Enhanced using 20-bit technology for 'high definition sound''' it may be, but 'high definition' is precisely what it lacks.
And Hiroko Nakamura, whose playing I remember enjoying in the Dvorak Piano Quintet, (CBS, 4/90), enjoys mixed success in the solo parts. Clearly determined not to offer merely routine accounts, she too frequently gives the impression of striving for effect. After an extremely broad and conventional opening to the Tchaikovsky her first solo is mannered and sentimentalized, minced up with destructive nuances; and although much of the playing thereafter is admirably well prepared, and expressively convincing, such unwelcome initiatives repeatedly recur. Nor is the technique in the highest international class, as close listening to demanding octave passages will confirm. Frequently I find myself warming to what I think Nakamura intends; but in trying so hard to be more than the average, her performances end up being less; they would have surely done better by seeking to be true to themselves.'