Rachmaninoff: Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 / Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat...

Rachmaninoff: Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 / Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23 | Sergei Rachmaninov | Once you've heard this...

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Rachmaninoff: Conc...

	Rachmaninoff: Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 / Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23 Sergei Rachmaninov Philips, 1995 average customer review:based on 71 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A real gem

Wow, after all the superlatives expressed and accolades showered on this CD by so many reviewers, I'm not sure I can add anything else but I'll try. I just want to share simply how I felt about it although I'm not a strictly classical music person.

When I first heard this CD, I ask myself what's all the fuss and hype was about. What's with the great reviews and even personal comments I've heard like "this is awesome, man!" - this coming from a total stranger who saw me buying it in the music shop. The Rach 2 I've heard and loved, but I've never came across the Rach 3 before in all my 50 years. My immediate reaction on hearing the CD on a modest hi-fi set-up was pure disappointment. Initial impression I get is that the Rach 3 sound like a mangled mess of musical notes, filled with seemingly loud, meandering and unmelodic banging on the piano. It seemed someone possessed, even mad was playing the music! Frankly, I don't know what to make out of the music, of what it was all about, particularly why it has been described as romantic when it doesn't evoke the slightest bit of romanticism in me. I considered the experience one mainly of confusion and the music a lot of "sound and fury signifying nothing".

Feeling dissatisfied and frustrated after listening to the CD a couple of times, I borrowed the high-end audio system of a friend and played this CD again late one night. This was then that I got a "revelation" of the Rach 3. What beauty, what passion, what wonder that lies in this piece of music! How thrilling, exciting, exhilarating the performance was. To me, it was like I was standing in the conductor's rostrum, listening to every beautiful note, every captivating sound, coming from both the piano and the orchestra. I can feel the atmosphere of the concert hall as the music float, soar and swirl into space. Musical notes upon musical notes produced by a pair of magical hands was coming out fast and furious - the high and low, soft and loud, slow and fast, simple and complex, harmonious and discordant, converging and diverging, agitated and soothing etc. Everything was full, rich, detailed and warm. Overall, it was all moving, evocative, and passionate. I was transfixed, fascinated, mesmerised by the music - or possessed by it if you will. I could not pull myself away until the very end of the concerto, until the final climax, until the last note has died away. With no offence meant, the experience wasn't so much like a wild orgy, as someone described it, but more like great love making with an earth moving climax. Or put another way, the music invokes in me the sense of great and mighty rushes of water flowing down a mountain relentlessly and inexorably to its final destination, culminating in a awesome waterfall (Niagara?) - all these remind me of human passions sometimes. Interspersed in between are the swirls and twirls of whirlpools and undercurrents, as well as quiet moments of tranquillity, peace and reflection. Now I can understand why some people find classical music so addictive and all consuming. This is what great music is and should be - music that touch, move, inspire and communicate with the listener.

I believe this experience was possible mainly because Martha Argerich is such a consummate yet sensitive master at the piano. Only performers like her appear to disappear into the performance and let the music come to life. Virtuoso performers who have big egos and think too highly of themselves tend to draw attention to themselves (see how great I am!) rather than to the music. I find their performances tend to be technical, cold, distant and uninvolving (regardless of how brilliant some think they are) betraying hints of aloofness, disdain, indifference to and even contempt for the music that's being played. Not so here. Here, the music comes through loud and clear to make direct contact with us at the right places, the heart first and then the mind.

Since then, I have listened to about fifteen other recordings of the Rach 3 by great artiste like Horowitz/Reiner/RCA/1951, Janis/Dorati/LSO/Mercury/1958. Some may be technically brilliant but leave me cold, disinterested and bored. These tend to emphasise more about the virtuosity/virtuoso than the musicality/music as mentioned earlier. This CD is neither the greatest nor the best but it is among the top 3 and is a MUST BUY. Get this and also the one by Byron Janis. Together, they form an ideal collection, offering comparisons and contrasts - one is a live performance the other is not, one is by a man and the other a woman, one approaches the music in a relatively more noble, controlled manner the other more in a free and abandon-like manner etc. Both are superb even if Byron Janis is the better, in my opinion.

Lastly, one word of "caution" - do not listen to the Tchaikovsky Concerto immediately after the Rachmaninoff on this CD. Don't be mistaken; the Tch 1 is also one of the best around, although it is not as good as the Rach 3 in terms of recording, not performance. This Tchaikovsky is also an ideal addition to that by Van Cliburn/Kondrasin/RCA/1958. It is just that immediately after feasting at say a grand Chinese banquet, I can guarantee that you will be too satiated to enjoy a grand Japanese banquet next. The Rach 3 will still be swirling inside you such that the Tch 1 will appear relatively bland and flat! So space things out and slowly savour and enjoy the quite different experiences!

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Once you've heard this...

This is musicianship first rate. Yes, it is wild. Yes, she misses quite some notes. Yes, I know, the orchestra has trouble keeping up. But the result is such a vital recording, full of energy and creativity.
Both concertos have been recorded hundreds of times. However, once you have listened to this cd, you feel that all other recordings lack this abundance of energy and you return to this cd.
Simply amazing. Buy this cd.

Blood and a lot of guts ..

I am a big fan of Argerich who is undoubtedly one of the most talented of all pianists. This particular performance of the Rachmaninov 3rd has attracted an enormous amount of attention, and rightly so considering the pyrotechnics that Argerich generates; the pianism is truly remarkable and this is a remarkable performance.

This being said, however, I do not believe this is a performance that I will return to very often because it is a performance that `wows' me, but not one that I can lose myself in. While it is exciting, it is exciting in the way that seeing a animal being devoured by a preditor is exciting - an amazing spectacle and a great story to tell, but not a scene that you would necessarily wish to see too many times. (Please don't read too deeply into this statement; I'm not saying that `The concerto is like the animal, and Argerich is like the preditor, and she does to the concerto what a hungry lion does to a deer', and neither am I saying, `I will listen to this performance as many times as I would like to see an animal being run down by a car', or anything along these lines; I'm just trying to give a sense of the impact that this performance had on me).

Nevertheless, this recording is remarkable, and is a must for all fans of the Rachmaninov 3 and Martha Argerich.

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Too many mistakes!

Professional pianists make 0-2 mistakes during a performance of a great concerto
but argerich, despite some great moments (i liked the opening of rach3) makes a lot of noticable mistakes here
e.g the opening of the 3rd movement of tchaikovsky1 - a VERY noticable mistake.. also during rach 3 on all movements.. mistakes here and there..

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

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