Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major Op. 15 (1797) [34:02]
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major Op. 19 (1793 rev. 1794-95) [27:56]
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major Op. 58 (1805-06) [33:02]
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major Op. 73 Emperor (1809) [38:43]
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor Op. 37 (1800) [33:39]
Piano Sonata No. 12 in A flat major, Op. 26 March Funebre [19:52]
Piano Sonata No. 16 in G major, Op. 31 No. 1 [24:50]
Emil Gilels (piano)
State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR/Kurt Masur
rec. live, Moscow, December 1976. ADD
Brilliant Russian Archives
BRILLIANT CLASSICS 94291 [3 CDs: 61:51 + 71:55 + 78:41]
These recordings date from the long sustained era (1964-80) of USSR Premier
Alexei Kosygin alongside Brezhnev and Podgorny. Gilels, like Oistrakh, was
born in Odessa and was to die in Moscow in 1985, broadly a decade after these
recordings were made and five years after the death of Kosygin. Between 1968
and 1970 Gilels recorded all five concertos in the studio for EMI with Szell
and the Cleveland Orchestra. It was an iconic set which must have sold in
its tens of thousands. I recall it being featured as the lure in many a Sunday
Supplement advert all the way through to the end of the 1970s and beyond.
It was once reissued in two parts on EMI Classics Fforte but has had puzzlingly
little presence since.
Brilliant have licensed the present, more recent, recordings – made for radio
at live concerts with audiences present - from Gostelradiofund. They are not
new to disc and were reviewed
by Jonathan Woolf as part of a six disc all-Gilels all-Beethoven set in 2004.
The conductor is Kurt Masur in his pre-NYPO days. The forthright recordings
place the sound confidently in the foreground. Gilels and Masur play and shape
their roles likewise. There is delicacy but Gilels is also a master of dignified
virtuoso brilliance as the exuberantly sprung finales of the First and Second
Concertos tell us. The presence of the audience is obvious enough from the
occasional cough. There are creaks, page-turns and all the usual detritus
attendant on the presence of people. None of that diminishes the listener’s
pleasure in these ripely enjoyable readings which only turn a shade shrill
at fortissimo.
These are manly interpretations where the musculature is never for one moment
in doubt. It is sensed amid the benign waterfalls of notes or in tender thoughtfulness.
The orchestral playing is tight as a drum and rhythmically alive – try the
finale of No. 4. Masur keeps things moving at a fundamental level in The
Emperor and this carries over into the Adagio. Some may find this
pressing forward too much of a good thing. It’s certainly an antidote to the
excessive soft-focus romantic drift beloved of some. This passionate acceleration
and brilliance of execution can also be felt in the Third Concerto and it
is much to the work’s advantage.
I have a high regard for Rudolf Serkin whose stirring BBC Radio 3 broadcast
of the Fourth with the New Philharmonia/Maazel on 7 November 1976 I am pleased
still to have accessible. Friedrich Gulda champions the concertos in the Beethoven
complete Edition on Brilliant Classics (ex-Decca) and suits me better than
the long-established 1970s Philip cycle by Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich and the
1960s DG from Wilhelm Kempff. Gilels by no means turns his back on the cerebral
but the emphasis is on the euphoric – on excitement. As for the two sonatas
they are played full-on as if he Gilels was still in contention with an orchestra.
The effect in these solo works is a distillation of grandeur; noble, propulsive
and compelling in No. 12 Op. 26 and more classically placid in No. 16 Op.
31 No. 1.
This set is well worth exploring providing you are not allergic to a spray
of audience noise.
Rob Barnett
Ripely enjoyable analogue recordings of these exciting readings.