Garrick Ohlsson won the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition just four years prior the solo recital performances of Chopin and Liszt featured on this DVD. Ohlsson recorded the Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under James Loughran at Royal Albert Hall in 1978. Since these youthful concerts Garrick Ohlsson has also recorded the complete works of Chopin to global acclaim and is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading exponents of Chopin.

Sound format: LCPM mono
Picture format: 4:3
Running time: 78’
Subtitles: n/a
Menu languages: English
Booklet languages: E/F/G
Region code: All Regions - 0

When I last saw Garrick Ohlsson live in concert in 2007, I was mightily impressed by the delicacy and contrast the ursine pianist brought to his performance of Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto. This DVD unearths performances given by a much younger Ohlsson some thirty years earlier, when he was less a bear and more a lion of the keyboard, complete with 1970s mane.

The main feature on this DVD is a BBC Proms performance of the Brahms Second Piano Concerto under the baton of that great Scottish Brahmsian, James Loughran, whose famous Halle recordings of the symphonies, last seen on Classics for Pleasure, have sadly been deleted from the catalogue.

Ohlsson, wearing a white coat like the leader of the orchestra and no one else on stage, strides out with Loughran to warm Proms applause. We are quickly underway. The first movement is nicely paced, flowing and big. Indeed “big” is the right word for this performance. Loughran knows what he is doing with this music. He draws a well blended, robust sound from the orchestra, right from the opening horn call. Ohlsson shares his dramatic conception of the concerto, moving from gentle rhapsodic playing to roaring climaxes with the ebb and flow of the musical narrative. The uncredited principal cellist brings grace and charm to the andante, which Ohlsson matches and exceeds, and the finale is smile-coaxingly playful, but never lightweight. The highlight of this performance is the second movement. Ohlsson is at his rhapsodic best here. There are occasional wrong notes and horn wobbles, but they matter little when the performance is as exciting as this one.

The 1974 recital is fabulously 70s, from the font that flashes onto the screen to announce the recital in time to the opening chords of the Scherzo to the wavy beige studio backdrop. Ohlsson’s Chopin is superb. The Scherzo sparks with nervous energy and, under Ohlsson’s fingers, rings more with tragedy than mere melancholy. The Polonaise that follows is big and appealingly playful, like Hans Sachs merrily mending shoes with a large hammer. Funérailles is dark and menacing, seemingly powered by Ohlsson’s relentless left hand. The size of Ohlsson’s mitts is astonishing. If ever hands were built for the piano, his were.

The booklet note by Jeremy Siepmann lionises Ohlsson and says little of the music or the circumstances of its performance.

The mono sound, clear but constricted, prevents a general recommendation when so much of Ohlsson’s fine playing is available on disc in stereo. However Ohlsson’s fans and those who would see the young lion in his pomp need not hesitate.

-- Tim Perry, MusicWeb International

Charles Munch conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1959-1961 in works by Wagner, Franck, and Faure.

This performance of Elgar's Enigma Variations forms an historic account of the first concert Sir Georg Solti conducted as Chief conductor of the LPO in 1975. It is also the first DVD release with Solti performing Elgar's Symphony No.2. Solti, who prepared new works by listening to Elgar's own recordings, identified closely with his music. The virtuoso playing of the orchestra combined with his fresh, energetic approach make for an exciting, uplifting experience. The ICA Classics Legacy series presents a collection of historic performances by some of the world's greatest artists. These performances are released on DVD for the first time, incorporating rare archive footage that has been expertly and lovingly restored.

Edward Elgar:
Symphony No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 63
Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36, "Enigma"

London Philharmonic Orchestra
Georg Solti, conductor

Recorded at the Royal Festival Hall, London, 13 February 1975
(Symphony No. 2), and 25 September 1979 (Enigma)

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: LPCM Mono
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Menu language: English
Running time: 84 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Sir Adrian Boult was a supreme interpreter of Elgar’s music, winning accolades and awards for performances and recordings. Boult championed his music throughout his conducting life following the composer’s prophetic words in a letter to Boult in 1920: “I feel that my reputation in the future is safe in your hands.” This release represents the only existing film of Boult conducting The Dream of Gerontius filmed in Canterbury Cathedral in 1968. This performance features a stellar cast of soloists: Dame Janet Baker, a leading interpreter of The Angel in The Dream of Gerontius, who recorded the role twice, John Shirley Quirk who, with Boult, recorded a definitive interpretation of Peter in The Kingdom, and Peter Pears, who recorded the work in 1972 under the direction of his close friend Benjamin Britten. This film uses the original BBC master which is far superior to the poor copies which have been in circulation over the years. This was the first classical music production filmed in color, for which Brian Large had secured eight out of the nine color TV cameras existing in the UK at that time. The film also includes a one hour documentary on Sir Adrian Boult as a bonus. The film was originally produced in 1989 to celebrate Sir Adrian Boult’s 100th anniversary.

Recorded 1952-1955.

Highly disciplined, rather hard-driven concert performances from a master conductor in his prime.

Strasbourg-born Charles Munch was Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1949 to 1962. He returned permanently to France in 1963, and in 1967 became the first conductor of the newly-formed Orchestre de Paris. He died suddenly the following year.
 
In an interesting booklet essay, Richard Dyer, late of the Boston Globe, recounts how Munch’s “sturdy build, shock of white hair and mischievous smile” made him a favourite with Boston’s “mink-clad musical matrons”. More seriously, and as these three performances attest, his period in Boston was a highly successful one. His particular authority in and affinity with twentieth-century French music are very much in evidence here. Dyer also refers to the conductor’s “physicality, rhythmic force, and baton technique … it is exciting to watch him move from a geometrical beat pattern into wide circling arcs of controlled excitement. Even when the stick is not doing very much, Munch is emanating …” Now all this is true, but at the same time, viewers hoping to see something of that “mischievous smile” will be disappointed, as the glimpses we have reveal him to be as unsmiling as the orchestra, and that is saying something. Using a score only in the Ravel, his conducting style is curiously stiff, with two-handed, mirror-image gestures that convey little in the way of phrasing but are ultra-clear in respect of the beat, which he frequently and meticulously subdivides. The players never seem to be looking, but they follow him slavishly and ensemble is impeccable. He barely acknowledges the audience on arrival, nor at the end of the performance. After the final chord of the Ravel - which is held for a long, long time - he half turns to them and then apparently changes his mind and brings the double bassoon player forward instead. There is a moment of humour just before Ibéria, when Munch is obliged to wait, once arrived on the podium, as sirens from the fire station on the other side of the street die away. The booklet has this taking place before the Ravel, an unimportant and easy enough error. The performances were filmed for television, in black and white, and though the booklet carries copious warnings about the sonic and visual limitations of the original material, it’s all perfectly viewable, though the film of La Mer had apparently deteriorated more than the others, the picture quality poorer and the sound less stable, with particularly acid trumpets. Few cameras were used, and the viewer is amused to find the operator “hunting” the woodwind soloists, and not always finding them. At one point in the opening movement of the Ravel the picture settles on the first flute - Doriot Anthony Dwyer, one of only two women in the orchestra - and only slipping off to her oboist neighbour when he starts to play.
 
What of the performances? On this evidence, Munch was more excitable in concert than in the studio, and not always to the music’s advantage. The reading of Mother Goose is rather more interventionist in style than we expect from Ravel performances nowadays, with a fair bit of variety of tempo and exploration of expressive byways. There is a marked slowing down in the middle section of “Laideronette”, but for the most part her bath is rapid and lacking in charm. Indeed, in this of all works, charm is short supply. One is surprised to see the vehemence of Munch’s gestures at climactic points, even in the Fairy Garden, and the inevitably limited dynamic range contributes too, everything seeming more or less forte. This does not distract from the superbly controlled crescendo at the end of the work.
 
Audiences nowadays seem to contain a fair number of people who wish to show how well they know the piece by being the first to applaud, frequently with a loud and obtuse “bravo!” Such individuals would be forgiven for thinking that the Boston audience weren’t sure that the good old thwack Munch encourages from his players at the end of Ibéria was really the last note of the piece. The performance as a whole is superb, colourful, rhythmically alive and seductive by turns: it certainly would have engendered a few “bravos” in London. Richard Dyer tells us that Debussy was particularly proud of the transition between the second and third movements, and that passage is very sensitively managed here. La Mer is very atmospheric too, and the orchestral discipline is remarkable. The storm that Munch whips up in the second movement is certainly very exciting, but it’s rather too much for me, I’m afraid. Parts of the final movement too, are about as fast and hard-driven as I have ever heard them, undoubtedly effective in a concert but less so for repeated listening.
 
The sound quality ensures that this DVD can never be a substitute for an audio CD. Admirers of the conductor will want it, as will those interested in American orchestral playing of the period.
 
-- William Hedley, MusicWeb International 

This 1955 recital, only Cziffra’s second studio recording is totally free from eccentricity and represents Cziffra at his best. It features miniatures (CPE Bach, Scarlatti and Couperin) as well as the Liszt war horses which Cziffra became famous for. The two bonus tracks come from a 1959 recital in Turin, which show off Cziffra’s dazzling technique. The Bach arr. Liszt: Fantasy & Fugue, like the rest of the CD, has never appeared on CD before. It is extremely rare having been remastered from a collector's LP using ICA’s Ambient mastering Process.

CHOPIN Piano Concertos: Nos. 1; 1 2 2 • Shura Cherkassky (pn); 1 Christopher Adey, cond; 2 Richard Hickox, cond; 1 BBC Scottish SO. 2 BBC SO • ICA CLASSICS 5085 (75:22) Live: Glasgow 1 12/3/1981; 2 London 8/30/1983


Shura Cherkassky, according to the liner notes, was sometimes a difficult man to accompany, as he would often change his mind on phrasing or tempos between the final rehearsal and the concert; thus, annotator Robert Orledge says, “some conductors were reluctant to appear with him,” citing as an example the sudden rush with which he plays the final section of the Second Concerto. I can see where this would be a problem. I recall a live performance I attended by a famous American pianist where, suddenly, the keyboardist rushed forward and left the orchestra behind, and I learned later that he did not rehearse the work that way. The difference, if I may say so, is that Cherkassky usually had good taste while the American pianist I heard usually played with poor style regardless of his tempo choices.


Well, as Cherkassky once said to me, “Some people like my playing and some don’t, but at least no one can say that I’m boring.” True enough. Yet I was beginning to doubt that this would be that fine a disc as the First Concerto started up. Conductor Adey plays it very slowly, with lots of romantic gush and goo, and moreover the first minute or so suffers from what is probably a crumply original tape. I was not expecting much. But then Cherkassky entered, and his bracing interpretation of the opening phrases acted like a wake-up call for the orchestra. (Having heard Cherkassky three times in person, twice with an orchestra and once in recital, and also being familiar with many of his recordings, I just don’t see that he would have wanted this concerto played so slowly to begin with. It just wasn’t in his nature, thus I believe that he bristled at Adey’s tempos in both the rehearsal and performance.) From this point on—thankfully—it is the pianist who leads the orchestra, forcing Adey to pick up his tempo or be left behind. One is immediately caught up in the excitement, which despite a sensitively shaped second movement continues on through to the end.


With the Second Concerto, we enter an entirely different world. Richard Hickox was one of the great, underrated conductors of his generation, a man who viewed music as dramatic expression and molded his performances that way. From the very first note, Hickox is on edge, and I mean that almost literally…he makes Chopin’s orchestration sound almost like Beethoven or Schumann, full of drama and bringing out all sorts of inner voices with tremendous clarity. The switch from Adey to Hickox is almost as dramatic as if one suddenly shifted from John Barbirolli to Igor Markevitch, but Cherkassky is entirely in his element. There’s a particularly delicious passage in the second movement when the piano’s descending chromatics clash on one note with the orchestra’s chord—exactly as written, but a detail that normally escapes one’s attention in most performances of the concerto. And Cherkassky’s last-movement cadenza is incendiary, as advertised. It’s a heck of a performance that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Cherkassky’s changes to the text of the score are certainly evident but, like Glenn Gould, they generally enliven and enhance the music. Of course, that would probably keep this disc from being your first choice for recordings of the two concertos, but as a second recording it is definitely recommended.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

This elegant release from the ICA CLASSICS LEGACY series captures two memorable ballet performances, rescued from the depths of the BBC archives: Les Sylphides, danced by Svetlana Beriosova in 1953, and Giselle, danced by Nadia Nerina in 1958.

Maria Callas first performed Cherubini's Medea in 1953 and then again in the 1953-4 La Scala season with Leonard Bernstein. She continued to perform Medea during the 1950s and 1960s, most famously in Dallas and in London in 1959 conducted by Nicola Rescigno and featuring the young Jon Vickers.

This recording of the performance on 30 June 1959 at the Royal Opera House received rave reviews. The Times wrote of the first night (June 17), 'It is this play of conflicting, oscillating, burning feelings that is the core of the opera … and it is this fluctuation which Callas can convey with unique art.' George Mayer in the American Record Guide wrote, 'Callas builds her performance into one powerful line of increasing tension. It is the kind of performance which spoils one for anything less from the opera stage.' Callas has a very strong supporting cast of Jon Vickers (Giasone), Fiorenza Cossotto (Neris) and Nicola Zaccaria (Creonte).

Other versions of the Covent Garden Medea exist but ICA Classics have very carefully remastered some new tapes which have produced excellent sound for their period.

Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E major, WAB 107
(1885 version, ed. L. Nowak)

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Klaus Tennstedt, conductor

Recorded live from the Symphony Hall, Boston, 5 November 1977

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: Enhanced Mono
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Menu language: English
Booklet notes: English, French, German
Running time: 66 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

R E V I E W:

A top-quality performance of Bruckner’s Seventh under a great conductor.

The welcome expansion of Klaus Tennstedt’s recorded legacy through the issue of live performances continues with this reading of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony from Boston. This was a work that Tennstedt did not take into the recording studios though there is another live account, this time on CD, on the LPO Live label (LPO0030). That issue preserves a 1984 performance but I have not heard it.
 
It was with the Boston Symphony Orchestra that Tennstedt made his US debut in 1974, when one of the programmes he offered consisted of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. By all accounts that performance had the critics in raptures. It appears from the booklet note that when Tennstedt gave three performances of the Seventh three years later the critics, who attended the first of the performances, were a little less impressed, praising the conductor’s interpretation but finding fault with some of the playing; it was suggested that perhaps the performance was under-rehearsed. By the time the third performance came round – the one preserved here – it would seem that these little difficulties had been ironed out. There are one or two very minor slips but the overall standard of playing is extremely high and one has the definite impression that conductor and players are as one.
 
Oddly, the image on the cover of this CD is not taken from the performance we see. For this Boston concert Tennstedt eschewed a score and therefore had no need to wear spectacles. In fact the Tennstedt we see in this film is quite youthful-looking. The recording is presented in “Enhanced Mono” – I’m unsure what that means but the sound is perfectly satisfactory – so we don’t quite get the benefit of Tennstedt’s layout of the string section: the violins are massed on his left but the violas are to his right – where many conductors place the cellos – and the Boston cello section is seated to the right hand of the violas.
 
The reading is a very fine one. Tennstedt moulds the long, expansive cello melody at the start of the first movement with great care and evident feeling. As the movement unfolds he takes the second subject quite swiftly, though he’s not too hasty. This performance is one of those that remind us that Bruckner was a musical descendant of Schubert – and Tennstedt was a fine exponent of Schubert’s Ninth. The listener is left in no doubt that Tennstedt has the measure of the span and structure of this movement. That’s even more the case with his account of the solemn Adagio. This is a noble, burnished reading and though Tennstedt maintains a good objective stance there’s no doubt that he feels every phrase. He shapes the music splendidly and the Boston players respond to him with playing of distinction. The strings are wonderfully rich in tone, with just the right amount of weight, while the brass are sonorous. This is one of those performances where everything just feels right – and inevitable. The cymbal and triangle are included at the main climax.
 
Tennstedt ensures that the rhythms of the scherzo have real lift and spring while the lyrical trio is affectionately phrased. The finale is completely successful. Tennstedt mixes energy with expansive phrasing and the brass-dominated episodes are delivered with due majesty.
 
Tennstedt’s rendition of this symphony is deeply satisfying and it’s marvellous to have an example of him at work with one of the finest orchestras in the USA. We’re told that he worked regularly with the BSO until 1987 so I hope very much that ICA may be able to license more material, either audio or visual, from the orchestra’s archives. I found it fascinating to look at the BSO of thirty-five years ago and I noted with some surprise how few female musicians there were on the stage – possibly eight at most, including the orchestra’s celebrated principal flautist, Doriot Anthony Dwyer. Furthermore, at that time there don’t seem to have been too many young players in the BSO’s ranks. I bet things have changed quite a lot in the intervening period. The thing that really matters is that the Boston Symphony of 1977 vintage was a fine, seasoned ensemble and it’s a joy to hear them play under this great conductor.
 
The visual presentation is reliable and gives a good representation of the concert. One minor irritant, I found, was the director’s occasional propensity for split-screen shots, showing us, for example, the principal oboist in one half of the screen and the principal clarinettist in the other. Happily, this doesn’t occur too often and it may not bother other viewers. The key thing is that if you invest in this DVD you’ll acquire a top-quality performance of Bruckner’s Seventh under a great conductor.
 
-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

BRAHMS Symphony No. 3 1. ELGAR Symphony No. 1 2 • Adrian Boult, cond; BBC SO • ICA 5063 (81:15) Live: Royal Albert Hall 1 8/6/1977, 2 7/28/1976


These performances come from late in Adrian Boult’s career—he died in 1983—and, if I’m not mistaken, this is their first appearance on CD. This is also Boult’s only live Brahms Third to be captured on record, though he recorded two complete studio Brahms symphony cycles in the 1950s and the early 1970s, both with the London Philharmonic, though the orchestra on the earlier set, which circulated on the Pye Nixa label, was identified by the pseudonym Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra.


Boult had a connection to Brahms, albeit an indirect one, through his teacher, the famous conductor Arthur Nikisch. Boult’s association with Elgar, however, was more immediate and personal. Boult was still a schoolboy when he first met Elgar in the early 1900s, but the youth turned conductor became a passionate advocate for Elgar’s music, and the two men maintained contact up until Elgar’s death in 1934. Boult recorded Elgar’s two symphonies a number of times, mainly in the late 1960s with the LPO on Lyrita and nearly a decade later, also with the LPO, on HMV. Arthur Lintgen reviewed the 1968 Lyrita set in Fanfare 31:3. The current performance of the First Symphony, obviously with a different orchestra, is neither that version nor the 1977 studio made HMV recording.


Boult’s Brahms at the Proms is not at all what I would have expected. Despite a first-movement tempo slightly to the slow side of the composer’s allegro con brio , the performance, with exposition repeat, is quite powerful. This is no patrician English gentleman’s Brahms led by an age-mellowed conductor. Boult’s conception of the score is quite dramatic, and in passages of volcanic upheaval it can be decidedly eruptive. The stereo sound is excellent, and except for some minor rustling between movements, the audience is silent. I particularly like the way, beginning at bar 20 in the last movement, Boult separates and leans into each note of the quarter-note triplets. It lends an extra ominous portent to the violent outburst we know is coming 10 bars later. This is a very appealing performance of Brahms’s most enigmatic symphony, and the one that I’ve always believed is the most difficult to bring off.


Expectations are confounded by Boult’s Elgar. Here I would have anticipated a more naturally flowing, fluent, and idiomatically English reading from the conductor than the one we get. Instead, Boult imperils the score by ignoring the composer’s semplice qualifier. The result is a ponderous opening more ceremonious than ceremonial. Boult somehow turns this magnificent, stately affair into something pretentious and pompous. I was really quite surprised.


There’s little improvement in the symphony’s second movement, which wants to be a lighter scherzo than Boult’s heavy hammering makes it. It sounds like Fafner and Fasolt slugging it out in fast-forward. Curiously, in comparing Boult’s reading to one of my longstanding favorites, André Previn conducting the Royal Philharmonic on a 1985 Philips CD, I find that Boult is actually faster, and by no small amount, in every movement but the second—17: 29, 7:07, 9:04, 11:25 vs. 19:26, 6:52, 12:58, 12:27—yet it’s Previn who sounds less lumbering and less laborious. Perhaps it was just an off night for Boult at the Proms, or more likely, perhaps, I’m just so conditioned to a different take on the piece that Boult’s doesn’t sit quite right with me. Given his closeness to Elgar, it may be that it’s Boult who has the more proper measure of the score.


In any case, the BBC Symphony Orchestra plays its heart out for him, and the recording captures the wide dynamic range of the score while managing to untangle its complex multilayered strands.


Clearly, this is recommended to all Boult fans and, I’d venture, to anyone wanting really excellent live recordings of these two works.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

BRAHMS Symphony No. 1. ELGAR Enigma Variations 1 • Adrian Boult, cond; 1 George Thalben Ball (org); BBC SO • ICA 5019 (78:21) Live: London 1 3/29/1971, 7/17/1976


& John Douglas Todd interviews Sir Adrian Boult (1974)


When EMI, at the instigation of producer Christopher Bishop, issued recordings of the four Brahms symphonies in the early 1970s, Sir Adrian Boult’s 20 years with the BBC and the steady broadcast reminders of the catholicity of his tastes and skills were well past. Bishop was troubled that the aging conductor’s reputation as an English music specialist, built on years of service to the composers of his homeland, had resulted in an insufficient recorded legacy of his art. The Austro-German and Russian Romantics had been an important part of his repertoire throughout a career that stretched back to his conducting debut with a professional orchestra in 1914. He had performed Bartók, Shostakovich, Mahler, and the Second Viennese School when most conductors wouldn’t.


The opportunity to address that presented itself when the always efficient Boult left open two sessions originally scheduled for the recording of Elgar and Vaughan Williams. Brahms was the perfect choice, as he had been an early favorite, the Tragic Overture counting among the first recordings that Boult made in the early 1930s with his newly formed BBC Symphony Orchestra. He had recorded the symphonies for Pye/Nixa in the 1950s (could First Hand Remasters make these a Volume 3?), and now thanks to a producer with vision, some of his last recordings were to be of Brahms, as well as Wagner and Schubert. Lucid, weighty but never heavy, dramatic without histrionics, Boult’s approach to Brahms was classical and objective in the style of Hans Richter and Brahms disciple Fritz Steinbach, both of whom he had heard perform. Ever the self-effacing (though hardly diffident) artist, Boult let the music speak for itself, and his skill at revealing important events without ever losing sight of the long line creates an ineffable sense of rightness in all of his Brahms recordings.


This is certainly true of this recording of the Brahms First Symphony from the conductor’s penultimate Proms season, but there is, in addition, an uncharacteristically stormy intensity. The brass, Boult’s favored horns in particular, respond with enthusiasm. The timpani drive the opening of the Un poco sustenuto with energy, and Boult builds the climax with a vigor that belies his 87 years. The Andante sostenuto is lilting, with enchanting, unsentimental solos from the oboe and violin. The horn soloist occasionally crosses the line into crudeness in the Adagio segue into the Allegro non troppo ma con brio finale, but the trombone/bassoon chorale is neatly balanced, the transition to the big tune delivers a breath-catching moment, and that noble melody is presented and developed with great spirit. Only the third movement is anything less than inspired, lacking, as did the 1973 recording, the full measure of gracefulness. Still, it is a wonderful reading of the work, most deserving the roar of approval that greets its conclusion.


Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations was also a staple of Boult’s repertoire, admired by him even when he did not care for others of the composer’s creations. Of course, he came to revere Elgar’s work and to become one of the composer’s leading exponents. The Enigma Variations has been recorded many times, and more than a few times quite well. Boult recorded the work at least four times. Each is an exemplar of this conductor’s art, but never more so than in this 1971 live performance. In it, Boult captures Elgar’s essential yearning melancholy, without slighting the high spirits or the humor. Heeding again Richter’s example, he maintains the arch of the work, creating a unity where many offer a series of vignettes, and still, within that flow, sharply drawing every characterization. The tone is autumnal, though the tempos remain fairly swift. The C.A.E portrait of Elgar’s wife is restrained but affecting. The Nimrod variation is beautifully paced, the heart-stopping climax perfectly judged. Dr. George Sinclair sends his bulldog splashing into the river most amusingly, Dora Penny stutters charmingly, Lady Mary Lygon’s leave-taking is appropriately bittersweet, and the final E.D.U. variation is all nobility and optimism, somewhat larger in scale than usual with the inclusion of the optional organ part suggested by friend A. J. Jaeger (Nimod).


Recommendation? Easy: No admirer of this conductor or student of the conductor’s art will want to be without this marvelous release. The sound is good, yielding little to the cavernous space of Royal Albert Hall. The playing isn’t perfectly tidy, but certainly not bad for one-off recordings. In any case, technical perfection was never as important to Boult as finding the heart of the work. That he achieves twice here.


FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames


"...These are fine, wise performances, which act as welcome supplements to Sir Adrian’s studio versions of these works. Even if you have those recordings this CD is well worth your attention for the frisson of a live occasion is definitely present. The recordings have come up pretty well and there’s a characteristically good note by Boult’s biographer, Michael Kennedy."

- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

A treasurable disc, offering lasting virtues, and performances of subtlety, warmth and humanity.

Much as Arthur Rubinstein enjoyed making recordings, he loved to play in public even more, and his extant live performances usually communicate more verve, sweep, and joie de vivre than his later studio efforts. A previously unreleased live Brahms Second concerto from Zurich on May 23, 1966 is a case in point. To my mind, this performance splits the difference between the impetuous, skittish qualities of Rubinstein's 1958 studio version under Josef Krips and the stricter metrics characterizing the pianist's impressive yet relatively stolid 1972 Ormandy/Philadelphia remake.

Rubinstein's large hands grasp Brahms' unwieldy textures with the utmost ease and eloquence, from the first movement's burly chordal passages to the finale's scampering coda. In turn, Christoph von Dohnányi provides a marvelously alert, supportive, and full-throated orchestral framework. The (unnamed) third-movement cello soloist plays with subtle freedom and a gorgeous tone to match.

Previously unreleased solo pieces from Rubinstein's inspired April 20, 1963 Nijmegen recital (type Q11948 in Search Reviews) fill out the disc. Brahms' B minor Rhapsody soars and flows with far more poetry and controlled freedom than in Rubinstein's studio versions. Similarly, the Op. 76 No. 2 Capriccio is less square and studio-bound with an audience present, while the Chopin D-flat Nocturne and C-sharp minor Waltz feature heartfelt turns of phrase and rubatos that their stereo studio counterparts only hint at. As for the concluding Ritual Fire Dance, I can't tell who enjoys those extroverted upward glissandos more: myself, the audience, or Rubinstein. Probably the latter! The engineering typifies German Radio's high standards in the 1960s. Warmly recommended. [2/21/2011]

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

---------

I was talking to a well known critic recently who told me that he thought that Rubinstein ‘was an especially bad pianist’. Some critics have binary minds: A is good; B is bad, and so on. I doubt anything in this disc can serve to redirect a closed mind or one prone to melodramatic flourishes. Still, it should.

This is a truly beautiful performance of the B flat major concerto. It’s never been issued before, which makes its appearance in ICA Classics livery, ex WDR Cologne broadcasts, all the more valuable. Naturally there will be those who point to Rubinstein’s discography and note that, in addition to the fast and loose 1929 78 set with Albert Coates, we already have the 1958 Krips and the later 1972 Ormandy studio recordings. So indeed we do. But when a performance is as convincing as this one, and so well taped too, then one could wish for a legion of live performances from Rubinstein.

I worried that his first entry was too loud, but my ear soon adjusted and this despite the fact that the microphone is rather too close to the piano than is ideal for a really good balance. Almost immediately though one notices the excellent rapport between soloist and conductor. Rubinstein had known Christoph von Dohnányi’s father, so maybe that was a contributing reason – but I think rather that solid musicianship must have accounted for the notably fine ensemble, though in fairness one must note it’s not wholly watertight. Rubinstein’s sure sense of rubato is evident in the second movement, and the slow movement has a marvellous sense of chamber collaboration about it, not just the nobly restrained cello solo, or Rubinstein’s musing responses but later too, when the oboe, cello and piano entwine so wonderfully. The finale is galvanizing and outstanding too – pedants will note a few smudged passages, but the rest of us can listen to a performance of wonderful poise and purpose, at the end of which one feels both grateful, and happy.

The remainder of the programme comes from a solo recital Rubinstein gave in Nijmegen in 1963. Other items from this performance have been released before but this quintet of pieces is making its first ever appearance. He shows a commanding control over the rhetoric of Brahms’s Rhapsody, marrying passionate drama with reflective intimacy, but never at the expense of the music’s spine. Chopin’s Nocturne is possessed of texture and colour and the most subtle of rubati. The waltz is suffused with Rubinstein’s charm. After a brief announcement, in German, he launches into a truly daemonic rendition of de Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance.

This brings the disc to a volcanic end. It’s a treasurable one, offering lasting virtues, and performances of subtlety, warmth and humanity.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Rachmaninov was, by his own account, Svetlanov's favorite composer. This new live recording of his Symphony No.2 from the Royal Festival Hall in 1993 with the Philharmonia Orchestra has never been issued before. The recording is in excellent stereo and Svetlanov was at his most exciting when caught live as opposed to working under studio conditions. This is a riveting performance.