Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 / Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain [Import]

Dimitri Mitropoulos (Conductor), New York Philharmonic (Orchestra), Robert Casadesus (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Robert Casadesus
• Orchestra: New York Philharmonic
• Conductor: Dimitri Mitropoulos
• Audio CD (February 13, 2006)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B00005KKNY
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #863,378 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. I. Allegro

2. Ii. Adagio Un Poco Mosso

3. Iii. Rondo (Allegro Ma Non Troppo)

4. I. Au Generalife (Allegro Tranquillo E Misterioso)

5. Ii. Danse Lointaine (Allegretto Glusto

6. Iii. Dans Les Jardins De La Sierra De Cordoue

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars an experiment in interpretive extremism, January 7, 2011

By 

Discophage (France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 / Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain (Audio CD)

I'll limit my comments to Beethoven's Emperor, and will return to Falla's "Nights".... when Night comes.

This recording of Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto was made on September 19, 1955, and it is the most hectic, savage reading of the Concerto that I've ever heard - more even than Horowitz and Reiner's (Horowitz Collection - Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1/Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 "The Emperor"). This has much to do with the first movement tempo: not only is it extremely swift, but more than Horowitz-Reiner, Casadesus and Mitropoulos hardly ever relent; not that they are inflexible, but even the moments of lyrical repose are kept flowing, with an underlying sense of urgency. Casadesus's piano constantly sparkles and sometimes pounds, it rarely dreams. The orchestra is powerful and imperial indeed (just try the opening chords), martial even, but somewhat untidy: one senses that there would have been room for more subtle playing from clarinet and oboe - they tend to belch out their phrases with no particular beauty - and crisper rhythms from the strings. This is an interpretation that obviously gave more importance to thrust and drive than to the finer details. Sonics are mono 1955 with not much bloom (but one adjusts easily) and a good amount of tape hiss, the cello and double bass' melodies and counter-melodies, and even the violas, can't be distinctly heard, and at times Casadesus' left-hand is blurred as well. As for the bassoon, you need to listen very carefully to hear it. No problems for the trumpets on the other hand: they glare. This very extremism is both the recording's unique and incomparable interest and its limitation: it is hugely exciting, but it may also be felt as suffocating (the more I hear it the more it is the "hugely exciting" part that remains imprinted on me).

While brisk, the finale is more "in the norm", and many classic versions are faster still - Schnabel, Horowtiz, Fleisher, Katchen, Serkin, you name it. But Casadesus's second movement is entirely consistent with his first, and no doubt his and Mitropoulos'flowing tempo there will ruffle some feathers (compare their 6:16 to Horowitz' 7:56 or Serkin's 8:12), although it is not out of bounds with Beethoven's "Adagio un poco mosso" indication. But whatever poetry there is unfolds through Casadesus's delicacy of touch rather than through held-back tempo; still, I find that there would have been space for more. In another review of the Emperor (Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5, Choral Fantasy, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage) I remarked that this "Adagio" seemed to be the true model of the slow movement of Ravel's G-major Concerto, rather than, as Ravel himself claimed, the slow movements of Mozart's Piano concertos; Casadesus' is, I find, a very "Ravelian" approach,: sentiment is never allowed to become sentimental, and is always kept under a semblance of emotional detachment; the tears flow inside, not outside. But no doubt many will hear only the emotional detachment.

Casadesus re-recorded the Emperor in 1961, in stereo, with Hans Rosbauud conducting the Amsterdam Concertgebouw (Robert Casadesus - Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 " Emperor ", Piano Sonata Op. 101, also in DG's Rosbaud box, Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon). While the sonics are infinitely superior to those of 1955, by then, Casadesus had also mellowed, and his first movement is very and almost disappointingly middle-of-the-road; where he hasn't changed his conception though is in the "Adagio" - if anything, he's radicalized it even more. Thanks to the fine sonics and Casadesus' more subtle touch it is more effective in this later recording, and one hears a Mozartean elegance that isn't so much in evidence in 1955. But I find that this doesn't compensate for the relative anonymity of the 1961 first movement.

As an experiment in interpretive extremism, this 1955 version is recommended then to anybody seriously interested in the Emperor.