This installment of the William Kapell Edition charts but one more corner of the Russian piano repertory for which the pianist achieved an early fame. Kapell's 1946 recording of the appealing Khachaturian Concerto was the work's premiere recording, and the pianist immediately became associated with what became a jukebox favorite.
The gem of this disc, however, is Kapell's 1949 recording of Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto. In the explosive Allegro of the opening movement, Kapell moves between rippling pianissimo passages to lashing sforzando chords with consummate ease. A greater testament to Kapell's musical and technical skills comes in the variations of the second movement. His shifts from the mood of one variation to the mood of the next are immediate, passionate, and thoroughly convincing. He moves from the lush chordal lyricism of the first variation to the breathless abandon of the second, flying across the keyboard and never losing his way. The entire performance sizzles with a nervous energy that will most likely captivate any listener.

One of the more disingenuous lines of ad copy attached to RCA's Kapell Edition has got to be that "[Kapell] was able to attract the finest artists to him." Well, sure, but it probably didn't hurt that the artists Kapell "attracted" were also under contract to RCA. And while no one would argue with a description of violinist Jascha Heifetz or violist William Primrose as being among the finest artists, cellist Edmund Kurtz might not rank among everybody's short list.

Be that as it may, the Kapell-Primrose collaboration on the Brahms Viola Sonata in F minor is beyond all argument, superb. Primrose plays the piece with a warm-hearted tone and open-hearted interpretation, and Kapell doesn't so much follow Primrose as wrap himself around him like a comfortable sweater. Less convincing is the Kapell-Heifetz performance of the Brahms Violin Sonata in D minor, especially if you have an antipathy toward Heifetz's playing in general and his Brahms playing in particular. Heifetz is simply too hard-hearted and unyielding for Brahms. And Kapell himself seems uncomfortable with Heifetz's interpretation: rather than a comfortable sweater, Kapell sounds like a too-tight straitjacket.

The surprise of this volume of the Kapell Edition is Edmund Kurtz. While not in the same league as RCA's house cellist Piatgorsky, Kurtz turns in a driven yet expansive performance of the Rachmaninov Cello Sonata. Together with Kapell's vigorous piano playing, Kurtz turns in nearly as fine a performance of the Rachmaninov as is imaginable. One of the more interesting volumes in the Kapell Edition.

-- James Leonard, AllMusic.com

This re-release of William Kapell's 1951 recording of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini with Fritz Reiner and the Robin Hood Dell Orchestra will hopefully serve as a corrective to the many pianists who take this work at dreadfully slow tempos. The fleet and bright Kapell-Reiner reading makes this work's theme and 24 variations cohere in a way that eludes so many other interpretations--as an extended, precise, and often frenetic dance and thus not, in this way, unlike Ravel's 'Bolero.' Such a reading not only teases out a most appropriate Paganinian mania in the faster variations but also rescues the slower ones, like the eighth (here given a cool, easy swing), from sounding like dirges.
Whether under the direction of Reiner or, as with the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2, under William Steinberg, the woodwind soloists of the Robin Hood Dell Orchestra are exemplary, while the strings (especially under Reiner) shimmer. The concerto possesses many moments that require careful advanced staging; otherwise, the work runs the risk of sounding tunefully episodic. With Steinberg keeping the ensemble super-tight throughout all three movements, he and Kapell stage these moments brilliantly.