Sooner or later, if you love Rachmaninov, curiosity will drive you to hear his own recordings of his concertos and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Whether you'll love those performances themselves is another question. For those who take as an article of faith that Rachmaninov, without sumptuous colors, languorous tempos, and voluptuous textures, isn't Rachmaninov, these performances will be utterly confounding. Recorded between 1929 and 1941, Rachmaninov's playing, though riddled with wrong notes, is supremely virtuosic -- ...
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Sooner or later, if you love Rachmaninov, curiosity will drive you to hear his own recordings of his concertos and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Whether you'll love those performances themselves is another question. For those who take as an article of faith that Rachmaninov, without sumptuous colors, languorous tempos, and voluptuous textures, isn't Rachmaninov, these performances will be utterly confounding. Recorded between 1929 and 1941, Rachmaninov's playing, though riddled with wrong notes, is supremely virtuosic -- check out the flashing double octaves in the Third Concerto's third-movement cadenza -- but it is otherwise nearly devoid of the characteristics often associated with his music. As a pianist, the composer favors bright colors, brisk tempos, and lucid textures, and succeeds in compelling his accompanists, either Leopold Stokowski or Eugene Ormandy leading the Philadelphia Orchestra, to accommodate him. The results are performances that may sound wrong to those familiar with only the...
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Add this copy of Rachmaninoff Plays Four Concertos to cart. $15.95, very good condition, Sold by THE OREGON ROOM rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Phoenix, OR, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by Asv Living Era.
