Customer Reviews

Complete Nimbus Recordings

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Nimbus has done all fans of this legendary pianist quite a service by releasing these recordings on a bargain package. Needless to say, as in all Nimbus recordings, the sound is very well proportioned and it is pure delight to sense such intimacy as recorded here by Shura. To all those who know his playing, there are some surprises and also some dissapointments in this set. Most memorable are surprisingly those works which require a higher degree of instrospection such as the Shumann Kreisleriana and the Rachmaninov Corelli Variations, unfortunately we must keep in mind that these recordings were made towards the end of his life and highly-virtuosic works such as the Bach-Busoni Chaconne and the Pabst Eugene Onegin Paraphrase come through only after some obvious struggle - yet, there are some extraordinary moments which should cause envy on most younger performers. But all throughout, these recordings show Cherkassky as the master he was in his old age: reminiscent of piano-playing where the performer played as an extension of the keyboard and the composer - and that ever present sense of discovery found in his performances. This is always an ideal combination for great music making.

To me, Cherkassky can be held up in the same light as Richter, at times that is. When Cherkassky is caught at his best, such as in Decca's eight volumes series, or the two Philips Great Pianist releases, or the plethora of live releases[he was always at his best live] he is revelatory.
However, in the studio, most of the time, he produced nothing but a blemish to his name and fodder for his detractors, of which there are many.
There are performances on this release that have no business being released. Pieces that Cherkassky could play with his toes, Pieces that he has turned in exceptional performances of[Schumann, Chopin, etc] that for this nimbus release are embarrasing. Just listen to the Chopin Piano Sonata 3, truly one the worst performances I have heard by a great pianist and even by lesser mortals. The Schumann cant be mentioned in the same breath with his earlier performances[obtainable on Philips GP Series], Petrouchka is a disgrace to his name[a piece he plays marvelously], the Brahms Pag Rhap is just more of the same.
I believe the reason Nimbus released this for such a cheap price is because they new how bad what they had was and felt they should be done with it. They gave Cherkassky free reign to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and now I have to listen to these recordings being cited everytime I try to convince someone he is one of the bests. What a shame.