Customer Reviews

Piano Concerto / Dance Suite

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This is by far the most beautiful and intoxicating interpetation of the Khachaturian that I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. Dora Serviarian- Kuhn is a skilled artist that releases the force and emotion that this piece demands.

I have listened to as many recordings of the Piano Concerto as I can find. There are not many. We have Oborin, Kappel and Hollander from the LP era. All great and historical readings that anyone moved by this piece should listen to. We also have a few modern recordings worth consideration. This one, however, is not the best one. It' ok but it lacks the range of emotion of say Orbelian/Jarvi. Serviarian-Kuhn plays much lighter both in mood and sound than Orbelian. The Orbelian is absolutely breath taking. Powerful and majestic. The second movement is especially moving. The SNO under Jarvi (a personal friend of the late Khachaturian) is fabulous. The orchestra may be "Scottish" but Jaryi is an Estonian romantic from the Soviet era who studied under Mravinski in Leningrad. He pulls all the stops on this recording and it is brilliant. The Seviarian is nothing like that. Serviarian is well known for her interpretation of the concerto but this recording comes off flat and lacking emotion. The piano is thin and the orchestra is pedestrian. Armenian, yes, but they miss the mark.

ASV's series of the orchestral music is valuable if variable, both with respect to the quality of the performances (or more often with the sound) and with respect to the quality of the music. The musical quality of the piano concerto is not in doubt, however, although the couplings here are pretty slight. Fortunately, the performances are quite good - I had not heard of Dora Serviarian-Kuhn before, but she is certainly a pianist able to deal with the idiom and the technical wizardry needed in this work at least, and she does so with a huge range of colors and fantasy, although the performances are somewhat lacking in fire and urgency - momentum is sacrificed for atmosphere and fantasy and the concerto fails to pack the punch it could have done. She is well accompanied by Loris Tjeknavorian and the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, but the orchestra is stronger on color than on dramatic sweep and fervor.

The opening movement is the weakest of the work, but Serviarian-Kuhn provides enough imagination and fantasy to the various bravura passages to make it sound quite convincing. The slow movement is, however, a remarkable creation; alluring, exotic, evocative and powerful, and the performances does indeed shimmer and sparkle - although they miss the dramatic undercurrent. The jaunty third movement is, again, colorful and spirited, and while I should emphasize that I enjoyed it greatly, it doesn't quite gain the momentum it could have in the performances at hand. The recording is generally good; the piano is bright and clear and the orchestra somewhat mellow (which suits the approach choseny); sultry and lush.

The two pieces for wind band are mere circus and swap-meet carousel affairs, whereas the Dance suite is very much typical of the composer - inspired by Armenian folk music, and containing a richness of tunes and colors, but unfortunately in this case without achieving anything memorable (although it is enjoyable enough one first time around). Tjeknavorian is, however, still an ideal champion, and overall this is a very recommendable release if not the first choice of the concerto.