Violin Concerto in D Op 61 (1806) [43:50]
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58 (1805-06) [33:23]
Leonid Kogan (violin)
Hans Richter-Haaser (piano)
Orchestre de la Société des Concerts Du Conservatoire/Constantin Silvestri (Violin Concerto)
Philharmonia Orchestra/István Kertesz
rec. November 1959, Salle Wagram, Paris (Violin Concerto) and July 1960, Studio No.1, Abbey Road, London (Piano Concerto)
AMARE CLASSICS AME1002 [77:23]
Both these LP recordings are well-known, the Kogan a little better so
than the Hans Richter-Haaser, and both have been reissued on CD. The proximity
in recording date – 1959 and 1960 – makes them worthy disc-mates,
though other approaches could have been taken. The more natural route
is a disc devoted to a single performer, and this has already happened
in Kogan’s case several times. EMI’s own Kogan twofer includes
this recording and adds concertos by Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Lalo (7
67732 2). Kogan and Silvestri’s recording has disciplined strength
and great executant purity. Kogan plays at all times with refinement and
perfect intonation, his focus wholly musical and devoid of show, and as
ever enshrining pellucid beauty of tone. His saturnine somewhat hatchet-faced
look – which belied the indisputable poetry of his playing - lead
to a mistaken belief that his playing was cold. In fact it marries near-perfect
technical address with an often rapt quality – his vibrato, under
perfect control, remains on the silvery side, seldom broadening into an
endemic oscillation. Thus the slow movement is seraphic in his hands,
never opulent, but taut. The finale is buoyant and full of sparkling touches.
In that respect Silvestri complements him well throughout. The playing
is not as personalised as some but that is not to imply a sense of reserve.
The transfer is a good one, fortunately. EMI’s retains slightly
more room ambience.
The companion concerto is Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto where
Richter-Haaser is accompanied by István Kertesz, who directs the Philharmonia.
It remains true that the pianist’s collaboration with Karajan in
Brahms’s Second Concerto is the better-remembered but in many ways
this Beethoven recording is the more perfectly realised. Richter-Haaser’s
musical maturity and expressive insights are everywhere apparent. His
is an unusually deft and noble reading, in which poetic elegance is in
even greater evidence than in Kogan’s Violin Concerto. The opening
piano statements are rapt but inwardly half-spoken and this sets the template
for the performance to come; it doesn’t lack for propulsion where
necessary but is always carefully calibrated toward the interior. Whilst
the conductor’s natural penchant may have been for a more extrovert
reading in which the Apollonian and Olympian were more conventionally
balanced, he proves a masterfully accommodating musician throughout.
Should that latter quality be important the contemporaneous Gilels-Ludwig
recording is easily available. Otherwise, Richter-Haaser admirers will
know that both this Fourth and the Emperor were transferred by Testament
over a decade ago, though I’ve not had access to it for comparative
purposes. In any case the desirability of this disc will presumably depend
on whether one wants a single-artist disc or, as here, one that casts
the net more widely.
Jonathan Woolf
Masterwork Index: Piano
concerto 4 ~~ Violin
concerto
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