Customer Reviews

Prokofiev: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you like these two Prokofiev piano concertos, you should probably get them right away per this disc. These readings are a crazy, bold, brash mix of lyrical song, motoric industrial display, tonal colors, and perceptible Russian folk music inflections (shotgun wedded to French musical sophistication and clarity).

Yes, a mish mash, and what a mish mash. Dazzling. It's too much, really. It shouldn't work, musically. Yet what a careening ride in a fast machine?

Kissin recorded the first and third piano concertos under Abbado in Berlin, early on in his DGG career. Those readings were stunning with promise and energy; but perhaps Abbado's influence tended to blend and smooth over, softening some of the wildest Prokofiev-rough edges?

Ashkenazy has himself done a complete piano concerto set under Andre Previn with the LSO. I hold that older set in high regard, tilted just a tad in favor of the pianist over the band and conductor. Other complete sets have something to offer, no doubt. Toradze with Gergiev just misses being the total bomb. Beroff is a fine Prokofiev pianist, but I have also-ran doubts about Kurt Masur in Leipzig. Krainev with Kitaenko in Frankfurt is a better pianist-conductor-band match, to my ears. I really like Kun Woo Paik, and feel that most of the time Antoni Wit keeps up with PNRSO. Finally, bravo - to Testament for re-releasing the John Browning concertos with Leinsdorf in Boston.

My lasting touchstones have highlighted single disc readings. Andrei Gavrilov in the first piano concerto, LSO, Simon Rattle conducting. I like the second piano concertos by Yundi Li, Nikolai Demidenko, Igor Ardasev. My third concerto fav of all time is an old EMI disc, John Browning (again under Leinsdorf, with the London Philharmonia - coupled with a superlative Ravel concerto). Followed closely by Dickran Atamian in Seattle with Gerard Schwarz conducting. (Coupled with a scary, hell-bent, fire-breathing reading of the Khachaturian piano concerto). For my fourth concerto I return to Browning and Demidenko, and truth is, I can enjoy nearly any of the other fourth concertos from the complete sets. Same with the fifth concerto, plus Richter single discs.

This new second concerto from Kissin is his first reading. The work tends to be rising in popularity, thanks not least to the devoted advocacy it has received on discs. Way back when, about the only stereo recording one might find of it in USA shops was Charles Munch leading the Boston Symphony with Nicole Henriot-Schweitzer at the keyboard. Even when Browning was brave enough to do it later, again in Boston as part of the old RCA complete Prokofiev series, the second concerto was hardly well-known on disc or in the live concert halls.

Many worthwhile readings have already banished the cobwebs and mistaken perceptions of the second concerto. Kissin and Ashkenazy go right to the top. Provided that you want your Prokofiev to be a wild and crazy and colorful mix of exuberant, grab bag influences. This reading of the second concerto seems to touch all possible bases in passing. It has moments of hot-house Late Romantic Russian fervor. The musical panorama is big and bold and brilliant, as if Prokofiev were not entirely turning his back on Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Schumann, Grieg. Did Scriabin bequeath a touch of madness to the composer of these concertos? Was it those famed Rubinstein brothers, Anton and Nikolai?

This reading has abundant drive and motor skills. Kissin and the band under Ashkenazy stalk, run, and pounce in the best predator-hunter Prokofiev manner. Their reading achieves a sort of graced, manic animal splendor, equaled but hardly exceeded by other readings available. What fine, subtle threads of gilded, Ravel-like irony and urbanity run through all four movements.

Next the new Kissin third concerto shoots across our skies, a musical comet flying far beyond the former trajectory of his outing under Abbado. Perhaps thanks to the deep knowledge that Ashkenazy has of the score, this reading is a vibrant partnership, keyboard with band with conductor. Yes, competitive with Browning and Leinsdorf on the old EMI disc. Again, the reading is a take no prisoners, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead affair. All the heady influences streaming through the reading of the second concerto are also loose, bursting all the dams, flooding through this third. I especially enjoy the wildness that comes across, rather like one expects to hear from Prokofiev in an exciting reading of his Alexander Nevsky cantata.

I have long cherished the Ashkenazy reading of the Prokofiev fifth symphony (Amsterdam Concertgebouw, on Decca) for its brilliant musical colors and folk-music inflected phrasings. All the symphony movements are deeply touched with fabulous Russian soul in ways that most modernist readings of the symphony do not quite manage to express. It must have been a good day in the studio, since even readings captured direct from Russian with famous Russian bands fall short of that one, to my ears.

Ashkenazy here brings a similar kind of muscular, colorful, folk-music inflected phrasing to what the band does in both concertos. This pays huge dividends, musically. The regular red book PCM recording captures all this in gorgeous, big stage sound. Per the booklet, these performances were taken from live concerts at Royal Festival Hall. (January, 2008) Thankfully, audience noises are not a problem, nor do we have to forbear with applause at the end.

No doubts, five stars. If this is disc one of a complete set, we really have something happy to anticipate. Thanks. Bravo.

In the divide between 5 star and 2-3 star ratings, I am in the the 5 star camp, though for somewhat independent reasons.
It states clearly on the CD that it was recorded in concert. I heard the
concerti in London and Birmingham. I know Evgeny Kissin also played them
elsewhere. So, while we do not know what was recorded where, we do know
that the recordings were live in concert. It makes no sense for EMI to misrepresent that, and with his painstaking integrity, Mr Kissin would never approve it.
Sometimes live performances can sound a little hollow or flat when recorded live, and there may be coughing, applause or other noise. These recordings are just the music, beautifully >recorded with great immediacy, and played with extraordinary intellectual, emotional and technical power and thrilling brilliance.
I love the spirited energy of the performances and the way the pianist expressed that with a lyrical late romantic roundness of the sound. I certainly like other performances of these works too, starting with Sergei Prokofiev himself, and including Messrs Vladimir Ashkenazy and Grigory Sokolov. As with Mr Kissin's Beethoven cycle, my only reservation is about the orchestral accompaniment. That does not affect my rating overall because the soloist's playing is so terrific, just as I would not want Prokofiev's own performance any less because of the orchestral support he received from the London Symphony under Piero Coppola. Here, while I think the orchestral support is ok, the more I listen to these performances, the more I wish they had the energy to match the support of the Chicago Symphony under Andrew Davis for the soloist's Beethoven cycle, or the unreleased Brahms concerti with the Boston Symphony under James Levine, which were wonderfully matched musically, and I suppose a pairing with the Berlin Philharmonic could be interesting. I am glad to have Mr Kissin's performances on this CD, which I think Prokofiev would probably very much too, and am happy to give it a 5-star recommendation.

What in the world would a newcomer to this CD, or to Amazon's review system, take away from the posts so far? Certainly not a coherent picture musically. The windy postings in the one- and five-star category are unusually eccentric. The blogosphere unleashes strange minds.

Approaching this CD without prejudice, I'm in agreement with Mr. Behr, who points to vivid, visceral recorded sound -- the piano is caught with real depth and impact -- and Kissin's extraordinary technical prowess. In terms of keyboard mastery, we are at the very highest echelon, the territory of Horowitz and Pollini. Kissin is perfectly at ease in the Prokofiev Second, making child's play of passages that are often banged out with effort. Prokofiev's keyboard idiom embraced motor rhythms and the percussive side of the piano's range, as did Bartok. The Second takes his modernism to a farther extreme than any other of the five concertos, which accounts for its neglect, both in the past and present. Kissin is less bombastic than most, and his mastery over the idiom cannot be faulted. He may be dubious in Beethoven, but in Russian music he's unassailable.

The Third Cto. is Prokofiev's most popular by far, and the range of great recordings extends back as far as William Kapell in the early Fifties to Gary Graffman in the Sixties (with George Szell as a razor-sharp but elegant accompanist) and Argerich among contemporaries. Kissin re4turns to the work for the third time here, competing with his younger self on RCA and DG. Both of those recordings were powerful, elegant, elegiac, and witty, capturing the shifting moods of a mercurial work. I was a bit afraid that he would lose his earlier lightness and brightness, given that Kissin's development has been in the direction of barnstorming and heavy-handedness.

There's no doubt that this reading is a barnstormer, not to mention that it's built on a somewhat grander scale than the earlier ones (adding over 3 min. in timing to the RCA account). What we've gained is a sense of overwhelming technical command, abetted by EMI's close-up miking of the piano, which thunders away almost frighteningly. The theme and variations that are the heart of the concerto exhibit a breathtaking range from delicate pointillism to sinuous melody, and the most demanding passagework whisks by without banging. Harking back to Kapell, I don't hear as much sheer vivacity, and Argerich is more volatile and abandoned. (Richter never left a recording of either concerto, by the way, commercially or through pirates of live concerts.) One reason that Kissin so dominates this performance is that Ashkenazy takes a back seat with a straightforward accompaniment that is fine in its way but rather faceless. However, the orchestra plays gorgeously throughout.

I've taken extra space to describe a performance that previous postings have warped to fit the reviewer's prejudice. If you want Kissin's Prokofiev third, all his recordings are top choices. It's really the pairing that will determine which one fits your collection.

Kissin, Ashkenazy and Philharmonia playing Prokofiev's concertos...

I was really excited to hear the news of this CD's release.
I really love the Concerto No.3 and already own the CDs by Argerich, Paik and Bronfman.
But I was tempted to buy this with a hope that Kissin and Ashkenazy could make the music even more exciting than the other earlier recordings.

After the first listening of the Concerto No.3, I wasn't very impressed. The exciting moments in Argerich and Paik's recordings sound a bit dull here.
I wasn't very comfortable with the balance of the sound either. I feel the microphone was too close to the piano, making the overall sound a bit unnatural.

After repeated listening, though, I think it's actually not too bad.

Maybe I was too used to the other mentioned recordings and needed a bit of time to adjust to this new interpretation. Kissin plays the music with moderate speed and stronger accents than others and brings out more character. His technique really shines here. Kissin's playing is really dynamic and makes the music exciting in his own way, not necessarily by using extremely fast tempo.

Ashkenazy and Philharmonia, however, are a bit disappointing in the Concert No.3 with too much subdued and not very lively performance, leaving little impression. The balance of the recording makes it worse and sometimes the piano overwhelms the orchestra. I hope this recording had better blended sound of the piano and orchestra.

Concert No.2 is also very well played and Ashkenazy does a better job in this darker and heavier music. Up close microphone to the piano works better here and the long cadenza in the first movement is really stunning.

After all, I don't feel like I wasted money by adding this CD to my library. But since there are already better performances / recordings, I doubt this CD will replace your first choice if you already have your own favourite performance. I still prefer Argerich and Paik's thrilling performances of the concertos over any other recordings. But if you are really curious of how Kissin and Ashkenazy would play these concertos, just like I was, this is a very fine and interesting performance. But don't expect too much just because of the big names.

I dont always agree with Yevgeny Kissin's interpretations, but here especially in Prokofiev's incredibly difficult 2nd piano Concerto, Kissin breathes new life into this music, which due to its staggering technical difficulties, has escaped most other pianists (with the exception of Yundi Li, who plays it as well as young Jorge Bolet, who in the 1950's came out with a definitive reading on the old Remington LP label).Kissin with Ashkenazy is an ideal combination for both these works, and although in the 3rd Concerto, the power and madness of Terrence Judd's performance of the outer movements sweeps the board (more electrifying than William Kapell) Kissin's slow central movement captures the mood vividly of the composer learning of his fathers death. It is in the 2nd Concerto however that Kissin's vivid imagination and ability to identify with Prokofievs wit, humour and madness in spite of the staggering technical difficulties,that singles this performance out as possibly the greatest Prokofiev 2nd ever.Ashkenazy also has played these works on the piano, and so his conducting is thoroughly sympathetic to the needs of the pianist, with a perfect interplay and balance between piano and orchestra. Superb sound quality too.

Anticipation was high for Kissin's Beethoven Concertos release of October last year. But to me, opening the package containing the newly released Prokofiev Concertos disc resembled a good Christmas Eve 20 years ago.* The Beethoven Concertos were partly disappointing; the two greatest Prokofiev Piano Concertos, regrettably, are much more than that.

Indeed, I do worship the Third Concerto--especially the ingenious first movement. That said, the Second Concerto may be the greatest ever written for the instrument--at least the most boldly original and atmospheric. This is certainly not a widespread view, which also becomes evident when considering the greatest champions of this monstrous concerto. The greatest recorded versions come from 'niche' pianists, largely unknown in other repertoire: (1) Gutierrez--the best balance between atmosphere and memorable dazzle, spectacularly supported by the Royal Concertgebouw, Järvi and the Chandos engineers; (2) Toradze--the most alluring and at the same time thrilling version that occasionally goes over the top in extreme tempos, dynamics and accents, also benefiting from marvelous support from Gergiev, the Kirov Orchestra and Philips's engineers (Prokofiev: The Five Piano Concertos); (3) Krainev--a good solution between Gutierrez and Toradze, if less spectacular and personal, and with less memorbable support from conductor (Kitaenko), orchestra (RSO Frankfurt) and engineers (Teldec--Prokofiev: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-5).

Kissin in the early 1990s seemed virtually ideal to produce a great Prokofiev Second. Indeed, his Sixth Sonata was spectacularly accomplished--he was barely 16 caught live in Tokyo 1987 (Evgeny Kissin In Tokyo) and still a teenager (19) caught live at Carnegie Hall in 1990 (Carnegie Hall Debut Concert)--not to mention his unbelievable Etude encore (Op 2/3 at Carnegie Hall). His Prokofiev First and Third with Abbado in 1994 did earn him a Gramophone Award nomination in 1995, although they to this reviewer were very good rather than truly great (Prokofiev: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 3).

I have no doubt that Kissin may be the greatest living piano player caught at the right moment. This evidently occurred in August 2004 when he recorded the greatest-ever versions of Scriabin's Third Sonata and Stravinsky's 3 Petrushka Movements, saturated with the most gorgeous rubato and thrilling passagework conceivable (Scriabin: Sonata No. 3; Five Preludes; Medtner: Sonata Reminiscenza; Stravinsky: Three Movements from Pétrouchka); the Grammy Award it won in 2006 was most well-deserved. Without the consistent technical perfection of Kissin's playing, it would be hard to believe the same pianist is at work in these Prokofiev Concertos.

Vladimir Ashkenazy lost his sense of spontaneity decades ago; the Philharmonia lost its top-tier position even further back; EMI's engineers stopped producing first-class sound some time in the early digital era. This is all old news, but for some reason, the EMI managers simply seem to have ignored it. With Kissin being the label's biggest exclusive piano star (I do not believe Argerich has signed any exclusive agreement), this mismanagement is truly a shame. (Pairing Andsnes with the BPO, Jansons and Pappano appears a waste by comparison!) Well, all the same, this is probably only my trying to find excuses. Instead, let's deal the real beef...

Recorded live (although there is not a trace to support that claim--neither a single cough nor a single slip, which, on the other hand, is very much a feat in itself!), Kissin's technique cannot be rivaled. Comparison can readily be made in the Second with Li's recent rendition, which remains at least one level less effortless in its execution (Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No 2; Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major). My recent review of that disc often comes back to Li and Ozawa's failure to bring out the suspense which is so central both to the first and fourth movements. With Kissin and Ashkenzy, it is the other way around; the ample suspense does not lead to much at all. Another way of describing it is that one is waiting and waiting, but the thrill hinted at in the beginning just never materialises. This music is very edgy; what Kissin and Ashkenazy do is to smooth things out so much as to virtually disguise any bumps or sharp curves, which goes for dynamics, tempos, rhythms and above all accents. There is no sense of risk-taking here--as if driving on a rally track with a solid Rolls-Royce.

Alas, things do get even worse in the Third Concerto. I have never heard a more feeble account of this work, which is inherently bursting of bustle and dazzle. There are so many opportunities for bravura display as well as tender poetry. With Kissin and Ashkenzy, everything sounds about the same--nice, polished and jolly, but ultimately maddingly dull--even apathetic! For instance, in the first movement, what about the resounding sub-bass A octaves at 2:06--no, barely accentuated; what about the unison pre-recapitulation scales at 6:19--no, Kissin has tea; and what about the orchestral march onslaught at 8:03 and 8:13--nope, Ashkenazy and the orchestra do not seem to want to disrupt the pleasant tea time.

The theme of the artwork for this release is white--or rather colourlessness, which aptly fits the contents. I do not know if Kissin is about to join Ashkenzy full-time in his overly polite Englishness; indeed, this disc is likely to be anonymously praised by the British reviewers--a candidate for the Gramophone Record of the Year perhaps? So, why the plus then? Because I still will not give up on Kissin--especially not in Scriabin and Rachmaninov, where his skills still seem to be able to produce great pianism.

In order for a great Concerto to be widely recognised as great, it needs great ambassadors. However, for some reason, the Prokofiev Second appears elusive to those great pianists who have tackled it (Kissin is joined here by Ashkenazy and Demidenko). Since Argerich seems unwilling to take it on, my hope for a great 21st-century version remains with Volodos and Sudbin.

TIMINGS: Second--11:56, 2:24, 6:35, 11:38; Third--9:40, 9:25, 10:03

REFERENCES: Second--Gutierrez/Järvi (Prokofiev: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3); Third--Argerich/Abbado (Prokofiev, Ravel: Piano Concertos, etc / Martha Argerich)

* FYI, in Sweden, we always open the gifts in the late afternoon on Christmas Eve.

...and a VERY GOOD first time hearing.
The orchestra and the soloist are very well balanced and nuanced.
Kissin's pianism is not just staggering as Volodos or whoever...it is eloquent yet subtle, sophisticated yet naturalistic, well-controlled yet very much alive. In short, I could NOT imagine a better performance of these two pieces on the part of the soloist.
As for the much controversial Vladimir Ashkenazy, I find that here he is in top form, and collaborates with Kissin as hand in glove.
The sound? Very acceptable, if not outright on top, given that these two are live performances (I don't think top artists like Kissin would even think of any trickery in this respect).
The recording here gives me a chance to love these works. I have NEVER learned to love them before (AND I have already seriously heard more than half a dozen of recordings for each).

I rejoiced listening to Evgeny Kissin in this quintessential Russian repertoire. And a full recommendation from UK's pre-eminent critic finished convincing me to purchase this CD. But this time, contrary to the rave review offered by Norman Lebrecht, the product is hardly an "absorbing record" and even less of an "absolutely indispensable" nature.

We shall of course talk about the music and what Kissin and Ashkenazy do of it, to it. But we shall first turn our attention toward those wonderful people at EMI who produced this marvel of technology.

Indeed this "thing" possesses unique features that make it technologically advanced: for instance, it is one of the rare concert recordings that are devoid of any cough or audience noises! Applauses are inexistent. Not once the usual sneeze comes troubling your enjoyment of this marketed "public" performance! In itself this is good of course BUT it's not all. The orchestra sound is also quite special: it never is wider than the width of the piano! As if the entire orchestra was fitted behind Kissin and his gorgeous tone Hamburg Steinway as a rectilinear grouping of musicians. Listening to this canned stuff, you'd never imagine a stage with a piano surrounded by an orchestra. Indeed a marvel of recording prowess! Even better, one feels the radio producers that undoubtedly will fry this one over and over will love it: the compression is perfect for boom box and FM radio since just as in pop music, the sound level hovers within safe boundaries, up during pianissimos and down during fortissimos and the balance of the "song" is centered on the lead piano/voice. So here we have a XXI century recording, a perfect negation of all what Mercury Living Presence would have stood for, a complete fakery of stage and dynamics! EMI engineers and producers: congratulations!

So how about the music making now? It is worth the sound!

Concerto No. 2: Evgeny Kissin's virtuosity is now becoming his worst enemy. There is little imagination at work here and indeed too much... liberty that is, with the text. Prokofiev knew what he wanted, he wrote it down and that is quite different from Mr. Kissin's pretense. Why is it the ego of these instrumentists cannot bear to simply play a melody when the music demands just that? Why do they always believe their little mannerism will set their interpretation apart lifting them to genius? Do they truly think they are above the composer? So why is Mr. Kissin thinking his overriding rubato would add to the architecture of the monumental first movement? Well it does not and in fact it simply destroys it. It does not matter to him because those are notes that can be "interpreted" as opposed to images of a story well told. He does not know how to do simple -not simplistic as his boring repeats indicate-. The second movement fares better but the orchestra soup lacks pulsation... The third mvt. is prosaic and the culmination of this total lack of lyricism transforms the last mvt. sublime moment into a heavy, clunky, insensitive, brushed over tune. Kissin runs on empty and Ashkenazy has the delicatesse of a jackhammer!

Piano Concerto No. 3: the same strange unobtrusive orchestra goes from sections to sections, rather abruptly in some cases, serving the over-complicated contortions of the soloist. And repeats are done in the same way since no imagination is at work here: this is the Monty Python sketch of the "I say Patato, you say potato" song in all its splendor. A nice accent that alone would have added a twist to the plot is repeated, identical and thus loses its meaning. It's all very much insistent not at all subtle... A rather percussive Kissin cannot seem to get the Hamburg Steinway to rock anywhere near where Prokofiev demands. A New York Steinway would have offered more intensity in those pieces. And the gorgeous second mvt. or the lyric theme of the third? Well just a quick work, caricatural, not felt. Very little dialogue with the various sections of the orchestra can be detected. This is the art of representation not of the transformation. No story was told but hey since you bought the product...

Indeed this is an artistic regression for this great pianist compared to his 1993 performance of the Third in NYC that I attended and the EMI manipulated recording is a disgrace showing profound disrespect to classical music lovers and concertgoers. This product is a fake from start to end: fake music making, fake emotion and fake recording! Let's give it what it deserves: fake sales!

Update: ECHO Klassik 2010 AWARDS

Evgeny Kissin received an award in Germany for this CD among the 8 prizes EMI gathered.
A EMI promo video on YouTube shows the recording session... [...]
Clearly, in this video the Prokofiev 3rd was not played in front of an audience -hence the no sneeze and cough during the recording- while only the audio of the Prokofiev 2nd is played on images of London Central.