RECORDING OF THE MONTH
Max REGER (1873-1916)
Piano Concerto in F minor Op 114 (1910) [37.23]
Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Burleske in D minor (1885-86) [19.25]
Marc-Andre Hamelin (Piano)
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin/Ilan Volkov
rec. Haus des Rundfunks, Berlin, 16-18 March 2010
HYPERION CDA67635 [56.53]
Reger described his F minor concerto as “a pendant to Brahms’
D minor piano concerto”. It has many features in common with the Brahms
although it lacks the thematic inventiveness and lyrical beauty of the earlier
work. A very technically demanding piece, it was written for the German pianist
Frida Kwast-Hodapp who introduced many piano works by Reger and Busoni to
the public. The young Rudolf Serkin championed the work although very few
pianists followed Serkin’s lead. More recently Oppitz and Douglas have
recorded it and Douglas also couples the work with the Strauss Burleske.
The first movement, like the Brahms D minor, begins with a timpani roll. The
thematic material is very dense and earnest and Hamelin and Volkov treat the
movement in a symphonic way with the piano and orchestra acting as equal partners.
At almost 18 minutes, it is a very long movement and both pianist and orchestra
do an excellent job in referencing the overarching sonata-form structure.
Hamelin’s handling of the extremely demanding pyrotechnics is absolutely
astonishing particularly given the length of the concerto and the fact that
the technical demands are fairly unrelenting.
Hamelin’s tone and phrasing are immaculate in the slow movement and
there is some rather lovely dialogue and interplay between pianist and orchestra.
I thought Hamelin could perhaps have allowed the piano to sing a little more
in this movement and adopted a slightly warmer tone in some of the lush romantic
melodies. He captures perfectly the quirky character of the angular opening
theme of the finale. Again the fiendish manual challenges are surmounted with
ease and a sense of structure is evident. Hamelin also uses a considerable
range of tone colour and is highly inventive in the way he characterises the
thematic material in the last movement.
Strauss’s Burleske is a very different work to the Reger. It is more
light-hearted and with more immediately appealing thematic material: more
of a whimsical homage to Brahms than a successor work. It is in one movement
and, like the Reger, is a very technically demanding work. Many great pianists
have played the Burleske including Argerich, Arrau, Backhaus, Gould, Gulda,
Janis, Richter and Serkin. I particularly like Gulda’s recording and
that of his most distinguished pupil, Martha Argerich.
Hamelin’s recording is every bit as good as any of the above and it
is clear that this is a work which he absolutely relishes playing. Pianist
and conductor are as one with the orchestra taking more of an accompanying
role and with the orchestral textures much lighter and crisper. Hamelin’s
passage-work was perfectly breathtaking throughout, with Hamelin clearly relishing
the playful and whimsical nature of the material. He also brought out the
lyrical beauty of the waltz episode and allowed the music to breathe in a
very sensuous way. The final cadenza was nothing less than a tour de force.
Altogether, this is an absolutely outstanding recording.
Robert Beattie
Absolutely outstanding.