PROKOFIEV / FELTSMAN / LSO - PIANO CONCERTI 1 & 2
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Edition: Music CDMusic Label: MISC
Music reviews of PROKOFIEV / FELTSMAN / LSO - PIANO CONCERTI 1 & 2
Music Review: Feltsman & MTT are Not Bad at all--just Very Ordinary
Rating: 3 Stars
Prokofiev's First Piano Concerto is his most youthful, but the Second is his most original and memorable--indeed one of his supreme masterpieces. My review of Kissin's newly released rendition dealt with the greatest recorded versions (Prokofiev: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3). As also noted there, this concerto, in spite of its greatness, seems to attract mainly niche pianists--such as Vladimir Feltsman, Russian ?migr? in the US since the late 1980s, whose recorded legacy largely consists of a few large Russian concertos plus Bach.
Even if Feltsman is reasonably well up to the immense technical challenges of the Second Concerto, he is not able to leave a personal impression. Neither is Tilson Thomas's support, although being sufficiently alert. In general, I don't warm to unwarranted slowness in Prokofiev. Therefore, the Scherzo at 2:42, taken Allegro rather than Vivace, does not score highly--which also holds true for the beginning of the Finale, taken Moderato rather than Allegro. But at the end of the day, this concerto sort of stands or falls with the massive first- and fourth-movement Cadenzas. Alas, Feltsman sounds rather weak and colourless in both of them, particularly in the former.
In the First Concerto, Feltsman's pianism is fresh enough to do decent justice to its spontaneous youthfulness, if, again, not memorably so. The slow movement is indeed quite beautifully done. However, the third-movement Cadenza is a tad heavy. Tilson Thomas opts for a smooth and lenient accompaniment rather than the more idiomatic and exciting results attained by Rattle for Gavrilov or Dutoit for Argerich (Prokofiev: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 3 / Bartok: Piano Concerto No. 3).
The LSO and CBS's sound sort of sum up the essence of this 1988 disc: not bad at all--just very ordinary. That said, Feltsman's filler from Prokofiev's masterful piano version of Romeo & Juliet, the gorgeously elegiac Romeo Bids Juliet Farewell, is delicately done.
TIMINGS: First--7:05, 3:59, 4:30; Second--11:45, 2:42, 7:02, 11:16; Op 75/10--6:56
REFERENCES: First--Gavrilov/Rattle (Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1; Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 1; Balakirev: Islamey); Second--Gutierrez/J?rvi (Prokofiev: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3); Op 75--Glemser (Prokofiev Piano Sonatas Vol. 2, Nos. 1, 3 and 4)
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