Felix Mendelssohn: Piano Concertos (2006)

Well-written but not quite inspired music, meet well-executed but not quite inspiring performances. In the early romantic piano concerto popularity contest, Mendelssohn's two piano concertos have not attained the status of Chopin, Schumann, or Liszt. Part of the reason is the conservativism of his language and the rest is temperature of his emotions. Mendelssohn achieves all he sets out to achieve in his piano concertos with strong gestures in solid forms expressed with breathtaking virtuosity. But Chopin, Schumann, and ... Read More

Well-written but not quite inspired music, meet well-executed but not quite inspiring performances. In the early romantic piano concerto popularity contest, Mendelssohn's two piano concertos have not attained the status of Chopin, Schumann, or Liszt. Part of the reason is the conservativism of his language and the rest is temperature of his emotions. Mendelssohn achieves all he sets out to achieve in his piano concertos with strong gestures in solid forms expressed with breathtaking virtuosity. But Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt achieve those things and more: they achieve that ineffable quality of greatness. There have been a handful of excellent and even exciting recordings of Mendelssohn's concertos in the past with Rudolf Serkin's rip-snorting readings on Columbia topping the list. But while these 2006 recordings with young German pianist Ragna Schirmer and Günther Herbig leading the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken are often quite fine, they fail to attain excellent. Schirmer has an agile... Read Less

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2007, Berlin Classics UPC: 782124177522 CD See All