Late Russian Romantics

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Music reviews of Late Russian Romantics

Music Review: Brilliant but lots of eccentricities
Rating: 5 Stars

This is nowhere more present than on this CD in which he gives his beloved Scriabin yet new meanings and interpretations with all the fire, passion, detail and finesse one can muster. The clarity of the notes is secondary to the overall architecture of the small pieces. As Horowitz aged the length of his performed pieces shrunk so that he achieved an almost crystaline clarity in the few short ones he did play.

Ever the consumate artist, one really wonders what the guiding force of his interpretations was. Whether it is the lighting quick runs or the thundering chords or his almost unique ability to highlight all the inner voices of a piece, there was something almost undefinable about his approach to the piano.

The Rachmaninoff Second was extremely idiosyncratic with none of the "waves of sound" one usually associates with the composer. It is almost as if he transformed the titanic work into a collection of brilliant miniatures, each startling in its own way but by necessity only vaguely related to the others. The best rendition of the fabulous second has to be Van Cliburn's performance in Moscow where the stunning aspect (apart from the fact that he played the original setting) was the overall architecture and organiaation, the totality of the three movements and their cyclic thematic resonance. He (Van Cliburn) also brought a stately grandeur to the sonata that is sorely lacking in this rendition.

Oddly enough, the same problem holds true for the selections of Etude-Tableaux. Again we are in miniature land with brilliance and ardor but the structure again seems to have gotten lost. It is a case of not being able to see the forest for all the stunning trees. The Medtner was a fine choice and rendered with a poetic touch and much attention to detail.

Description of Late Russian Romantics

General CDs

• Styles > Classical
• Featured Composers, A-Z > ( M ) > Medtner, Nikolai
• ( R ) > Rachmaninov, Sergei > All Works by Rachmaninov
• ( S ) > Scriabin, Alexander
• Forms & Genres > Sonatas > General
• Historical Periods > Modern, 20th, & 21st Century > Composers > Scriabin, Alexander
• Forms & Genres > Chamber Music
• Sonatas
• General Modern
• Medtner, Nikolai - Works by Medtner
• Classical - Historical Periods - Modern, 20th, & 21st Century - Composers - Scriabin, Alexander - General