Customer Reviews

Piano Concerto 4

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4 star:		(1)
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Surprisingly, I like the fouth piano concerto much more than the other three concerti by Rachmaninoff. This recording is the fifth(!) one I bought, and I absolutely cherish it. I cannot explain why I think it is superb. I just feel it. The first movement of the concerto is the most "most" (This is what my friend obsessed with Rachmaninoff used to say about Prelude in g minor!)... I feel that Ashkenazy "somehow" knows how to bring out the best(?) in Rachmaninoff's music. Thibaudet is excellent as the soloist. I have all my envy and respect for him.

The Piano Concerto No. 4 in G minor of Rachmaninov lives unfortunately in the shadows of its two immediate predecessors: the ubiquitous No. 2 in C minor and the No. 3 in D minor played by both the silver and gold-medal winners of the 1997 Cliburn Competition. While the fourth concerto's oblivion is not entirely deserved, it IS a bit less impressive as a whole concept, especially in the third movement: Where are the singable tunes that are crucial to the finales of the Concerto No. 2 and No. 3 of the same composer? Anyway, Thibaudet's dynamics and expression are flawless; the Corelli Variations are a study in skips, subtle pianissimos and chord-shouting fortissimos. The Sonata in B-flat minor is played with an equal range of sound. If you don't own a copy of any of the three major works presented on this disc, buy it for sure. The c-sharp minor prelude is merely filler; I hardly ever listen to that piece anymore. . . .

This is a great recording of two lesser works and a major one. The Rachmaninov 2nd Sonata is played with as much sonority as Horowitz, but the usual 1931 revised edition is used instead of the Horowitz conglomeration. The Sonata comes off as being a monumental work worthy of the attention it gets. It isn't banged, the fortissimos are played with a velvety sound that is tittilating to the ear. The Corelli variations are played extremely well, as is the Fourth Concerto, even though the sound quality puts the piano in the background. Beautiful recording, Mr. Thibaudet, and brilliant Rachmaninov playing from a wonderful French pianist.

Thibaudet gives a dynamic, lyrical performance of Rachmaninov's Fourth Piano Concerto which sounds a bit more vibrant than Ashkenazy's celebrated account with Andre Previn conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. This is now my favorite account of Rachmaninov's most serene concerto. Ashkenazy and the Cleveland Orchestra are fine accompanists to Thibaudet's playing, though Decca's sound engineers took the questionable step of overshadowing Thibaudet's performance with the orchestra's in some passages of the score. Thibaudet's elegant, refined playing is recorded better on the Corelli Variations and the sonata; both of these are played with as much lyricism and warmth as the concerto. Like Grimaud, Thibaudet is a French pianist who plays Rachmaninov with a firm understanding of the composer's soul.

I was hearing this on the radio, and had to find out what it was when I got home. I like Thibaudet, but normally I do not think he is amazing. I prefer Walter Gieseking for Debussy and Ravel, and I love Rachmaninoff, but this is an incredible performance that brings out this 4th to make it as or more pleasing than most performances of the 2nd. I'm not particularly a fan of the 4th, but this really wowed me. I was truly amazed at his performance. Thibaudet was able to lose himself in the music and brings it out the way you could hope to hear Rachmaninoff played. The orchestra is likewise an integral unit with the performer, so you have a seamless performance that builds upon itself.

I have heard the future of Rachmaninoff pianists. His name is Jean-Yves Thibaudet. I've heard him being lauded as a great interpreter of Rachmaninoff, but have shied away from even listening to one of his recordings for a few years, fearing the letdown would be too great, should he not live up to expectations.

My fears were unfounded; His understanding of Rachmaninoff is totally intuitive. It is like listening to Barbirolli conduct Elgar or Robert Casadesus playing Ravel. I rank him right up there with Rachmaninoff and Horowitz themselves. Pianistically, he reminds me more of Artur Rubinstein; his playing is technically brilliant, yet he does not launch into the heavy incendiary ordnance of Vladimir Horowitz. Rather, he caresses the ivories with a poetic, melancholic, touch. Never do jumbled masses of sound emerge from from his fingertips; in arpeggios and climbing chords, each note is played cleanly and distinctly. His melancholy is always sad and poignant, but never submerging into bathos. In his later years, Horowitz was called "The Last Romantic"; I am hoping music critics amend that thought, for now, Thibaudet aptly carries that banner.

Thibaudet's performance of the Fourth Concerto exemplifies this. A very difficult piece to perform properly, this is the most satisfying recording I've heard of it, aside from the composer's own with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Although the Fourth is generally thought of as "heavy" (especially as performed by Rachmaninoff), Thibaudet's touch is the very essence of lightness. He is not as heavy-handed as his accompanist, Vladimir Ashkenazy, was in his excellent 1984 recording with Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw. Even the chordal progressions towards the end of the first movement (Allegro vivace) are dark, but not overbearing. What Ashkenazy does as conductor is provide a dark canvas of orchestral tonal shading, over which Thibaudet spreads his melodic colours. Ashkenazy's conducting of Rachmaninoff is very consistent with his Rachmaninoff symphonic cycle from the 1980s (also with the Concertgebouw) -- crisp, precise and dramatically tense. It is the counterpoint sections in which Thibaudet, Ashkenazy and the Cleveland are most awe-inspiring.

The second movement (Largo) is played as a simple reverie by Thibaudet; it almost reminds me of Rachmaninoff's own Ampico piano-roll recording of Lilacs. It never seems to descend to the depths of depression the way Rachmaninoff's recording does, yet Ashkenazy wonderfully cues the horns in an ominous statement of a Dies Irae thematic variation. The bridge to the third movement (Allegro vivace) is played with understatement, as Thibaudet launches into a very melodic and dexterous treatment of the movement's main subject. Also, I must hand it to Ashkenazy: This is the best I've heard the Cleveland Orchestra play since the days of George Szell and Erich Leinsdorf.

The finale itself is very triumphant; upon first hearing this recording, it was the first time recalled Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony in relation to the Fourth Concerto. That is both Thibaudet's and Ashkenazy's doing; emotionally and intellectually, you can tell this performance is the progeny of two of Rachmaninoff's greatest living devotees.

Thibaudet's solo works impart the same visceral, yet cerebral, understanding. He plays the Corelli Variations with the same quality he brings to the Fourth Concerto. The contrasts between variations are sharply delineated (especially from variations 5 through 7), all the while Thibaudet is dramatically notching up the tension with each successive variation up to the Intermezzo, even in the seemingly reflective ones. My personal favourites are Nos. 13 and 19, both which Thibaudet executes with a manic, sharply focused, precision. These variations, written in the same vein as Brahms' Variations on a Theme of Paganini, nonetheless build down, rather than up, to the movement's Coda, an understated Andante, which is Rachmaninoff's link to his next composition, his own Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Thibaudet handles this last passage simply, almost to the point of irresolution.

This disc's penultimate offering, the technically cumbersome Second Piano Sonata is the first version by any pianist that can offer serious challenge to Vladimir Horowitz' recordings, yet it hardly recalls the Russian master's playing at all. Van Cliburn's recording is a serious disappointment, and Ruth Laredo's is to be admired for her technical accuracy, though a bit on the sterile side. Inasmuch as Thibaudet is trying to reclaim this sonata artistically, is the degree to which he succeeds. I've heard this piece performed by a half-a-dozen pianists, but today there seems to be such an inordinate stress on the technical that the emotional and melodical get lost within the notes. After a blistering opening movement (Allegro agitato), Thibaudet treats the slow movement (Non allegro) with such honest simplicity, that the wistful emotions of quiet passion Rachmaninoff intended come through more so than in any other performance I've yet heard, including Horowitz, as blasphemous as that may sound.

The Sonata's final movement, Allegro molto, is also imbued by Thibaudet with the same technical wizardry in the quick and heavy passages, in contrast to the slower, more reflective passages. This contrast is heard in the buildup to the finale, but unfortunately, tends to undermine the tension and release necessary in getting the listener "ready" for quicksilver fusillade of notes at the coda. If I were hearing this composition for the first time, I'd say that Thibaudet blew me away with the finale. But, alas, the Horowitz performances (especially the 1968) define for me the explosive fury required to bring this piece to its proper conclusion. However, Thibaudet comes far closer to the coda's ecstatic potential than Cliburn, Laredo or Ashkenazy.

What better way to close such a wonderfully performed disc, full of lesser-heard Rachmaninoff compositions, than with the "overplayed" Prelude in C-Sharp Minor? (Rachmaninoff got so tired of being asked to perform it as an encore, he began loathingly referring to it as "that thing.") Thibaudet plays it at a languorous pace, coming in at five minutes exactly (Rachmaninoff recorded it at 3:36; again at 3:42). His treatment is heavy and somber, though never "interpretive."