Customer Reviews

Ravel: Piano Concertos

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Abbado as always is tops, so are Argerich, who in this recording is better than previously and Beroff who does justice to Ravel's perhaps best opus. Couperin would be satisfied with this fastidiously well timed performance of Ravel's hommage.

This 1989 DG release contains two of Maurice Ravel's best works, the G-major Piano Concerto (1931) and the charming Le Tombeau de Couperin (1917), as well as the Left-hand Piano Concerto (1930), a short fanfare and the early Menuet antique (1895). The performances of the works are generally very good and the sound quality is excellent, so this can be recommended as an excellent release if you want to hear any of the long featured works.

The disc's highlight for me is an outstanding performance of the Piano Concerto in G with the great Argentine pianist Martha Argerich as soloist. The concerto consists of two brash, "jazzy" shorter outer movements nestled around a very tranquil meditative Adagio assai (track 2). Argerich, Claudio Abbado together with the London Symphony, play the music just perfectly - it scintillates when needed and settles to a warm, slumbering calm in the Adagio. I have heard many performances of this Concerto over the years and I continue to prefer this inspired rendition. The French pianist Michel Beroff is a smaller name than Argerich but he is well-known to fans of French music with some terrific interpretations of Impressionist music, so Abbado has made an apt choice in selecting him to play the Left-hand Piano Concerto. This concerto was written for Paul Wittgenstein, brother of the famed philosopher, who had lost his right arm in yet another of the tragedies of World War I. It is fairly short and in one movement, starting with a lower strings theme that will test the lower frequencies of your audio equipment. I think one particularly successful portion of the Beroff/Abbado take on the Concerto is the very soft section (rehearsal mark 27 if that helps) where a bassoon has a high melody with the piano coming in high in its range. Just lovely. For me, the performance with Robert Casadesus led by Eugene Ormandy is still the best (and fastest) overall interpretation, that is a historical recording with dated sound. The current release is a very good modern recording which I think you will enjoy.

One of the interesting things to track in early 20th-century music is how certain composers advanced farther and farther into musical modernism - and then pulled back. In 1913, Ravel finished the Three Poems of Stephen Mallarme for soprano and chamber orchestra that is about to break from a tonal center. Unlike certain of his peers, Ravel pulled back and followed the Mallarme songs with a charming, intentionally retrograde work commemorating his Baroque predecessor, Francois Couperin. This lovely piece began as a piano work and then was orchestrated in a very attractive result. Abbado leads a very good performance of the Tombeau de Couperin. Rounding out the program are a short fanfare and the Meneut antique, written when Ravel was 20, which is his earliest piece to be regularly played. This Menuet I think receives the weakest performance on the disc - more grace and lightness is needed from Abbado - but it is a short work that doesn't detract from the excellence of the general results.

Martha Agerich still commands attention with her top-heavy performances of the Ravel G major Piano Concerto. A sensitive performer, Agerich gets 2 thumbs up for her interpretations, albeit with some reservations. Her touch is more suited to the Romantic repertory (I'm thinking of her recording of Chopin Preludes), but doesn't shine as brightly with Ravel. She is an amazing performer, but I think this recording suffers in comparison to better paired performer/conductors. Abbado is a very capabable conductor, but one merely needs to hear the Zimerman and Boulez recording to realize the potential of Ravel's 2 piano concerti. Beroff, another pianist with chops, does admirable work, but again, check out Zimerman doing both of them with Boulez. That recording is like hearing magic: the sparks and fireworks of Ravel's orchestration under Boulez's lucid ears. The other 'plus' of THIS recording is that Abbado has also programmed three of Ravel's orchestrated piano pieces. Showcasing his talent as orchestrator of the century, Ravel orchestrated these pieces originally written for solo piano and one would listen to them none the wiser!

Two 'Piano Concertos' by Maurice Ravel, performed by pianists Martha Argerich and Michel Beroff with Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra were a really pleasant change from my recently listening to his lesser ballet works. The concerti are definitely modern, without being dissonant. The influence of jazz literally drips from the orchestra's instruments. I didn't stop to check the dates, but I'm certain these were written about the same time as George Gershwin's great 'Rapsody in Blue' and his piano concerto, so I really have to wonder whether there was some real influence being traded over the Atlantic with these works. So, If you like Gershwin's orchestral works, these are winners. The second concerto has the added interest of having been commissioned by the great left handed pianist, Paul Wittgenstein, the brother of the even greater 20th century Philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein.

So, there is much to be interested in here, even if you are bored with some of Raval's other works.