It can't be disputed that the quality of piano playing offered by these three records is of high class. Indeed, from that point of view I doubt whether I could make a choice. Taking other factors into account, though, it's possible to see that Valentin Gheorghiu's DG recording stands apart from the others in presenting the concertos straight, with natural 'concert hall' perspectives. This predisposes me towards it as an example of record making. I sense that no modifications to the balance have been allowed to disturb the illusion of live performances in a concert hall, and I like that. I'm also inclined to think that, of the three players, the Romanian is the best supported by the conductor.
The other two records have been made in a very different way. They are productions for the gramophone, with no illusion of 'real life', and the aural pictures they give are the result of a producer's final mix. I've no objection to this so long as artifice doesn't draw attention to itself too blatantly. In this respect the new Decca is pretty good, I think, whereas the old CBS strikes me as rather crude, with orchestral detail nudging for attention it doesn't require, as if to make up for the lack of depth and body to the sound. The Decca at least gives us the orchestra as if sure of the role it has to play. I think my only reservation about it is that occasionally the piano sound lacks weight in relation to the orchestral mass, at the start of the G minor Concerto especially. Another small objection might be that the middle and bass of the piano are farther forward than we would normally hear. But I dare say this has been intended to assist Andras Schiff in the kind of readings of the concertos he's seeking to project—in which clarity and lightness of expression and lightness of texture are everything, or nearly everything.
I like his musical personality very much and his playing is often dazzling here. The pursuit of lightness and clarity he shares with Murray Perahia, and the results are attractive, especially in the quick movements of the G minor which can all too easily be worked up into an agitato clatter. Certainly lightness there helps to bring into relief the deeper quality of the E major slow movement, and that must be a good idea. The only doubt I have with Schiff is whether the gossamer and the elfin dash aren't a bit overdone. Though amazingly clean, the passage-work does sometimes sound so light as to suggest that the pino part is about to blow away altogether. The weightier kind of brilliance Gheorghiu is able to achieve with a less detailed delineation of the solo part over the microphones is probably closer to what Mendelssohn would have expected.
But I'm sure he would have liked Andras Schiff too. In the still undervalued D minor Concerto, I think he might in particular have liked the long lines and Schiff's quite restrained expression, together with his Schumannesque colourings in the first and second movements. Perahia, very fine throughout, is more urgent in the first, slower and more inward in the second (and maybe truer to the molto sostenuto marking) and a good deal more intense in the third, which he plays as a high-powered scherzo. Schiff is more relaxed with the finale and one could quibble that the dotted rhythm in the main staccato theme isn't always immaculate; in such details Gheorghiu's performance too is not so tidy as Perahia's. But once again it is Gheorghiu, it seems to me, who is the most direct and unaffected of the three players. There's a sweep to his performance which is invigorating, and one feels that Herbert Kegel and the Leipzig Radio Orchestra are part of it, not just an accompaniment. This remains a fine record, true to the scale nd spirit of the pieces, even if it's the most traditional of those I've been discussing. Perahia's is undoubtedly the most searching interpretation of the D minor we have had since Rudolf Serkin's 1959 version with Ormandy and the Philadelphia (Fontana SCFL134, 3/61—nla); I relish its strong contrasts but, alas, can only deplore the recorded sound.
And so back to Schiff's record. I've already played it a lot, with no feeling of disappointment. For the virtuosity of a piano-playing musician of uncommon gifts I'm sure it will be widely enjoyed; and if a digital version of these concertos is what you're after it can be safely recommended. You may disagee with me that the G minor Concerto is short of a red-blooded statement here and there.'