Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has already won golden opinions
for his performances on Chandos of twentieth-century piano concertos:
Bartók Piano Concertos 1-3 (CHAN10610 –
review
and
October
2010 DL Roundup), Ravel Piano Concertos 1 and 2, Debussy
Fantaisie
and Massenet (CHSA5084/CHAN5084: Download of the Month,
January
2011 DL Roundup) and Prokofiev Piano Concertos 1-5 (CHAN10802 –
review
and
DL
News 2014/1).
Chandos already had some fine recordings of the Concerto for piano and
wind (Boris Berman) and
Capriccio (Geoffrey Tozer) in a super-budget
5-CD collection with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Neeme Järvi
(
The Essential Stravinsky CHAN6654). The obvious comparison for
this new recording comes from Hyperion: Steven Osborne and the Scottish
Symphony Orchestra with Ilan Volkov on CDA67870, containing the Concerto
for Piano and Wind,
Capriccio and
Movements, as on the
new Chandos, but coupled more logically with the Concerto in D and
two shorter works. Leslie Wright thought that ‘the best collection
yet of Stravinsky’s music for piano and orchestra, and with added bonuses’
and made it a Recording of the Month –
review.
Geoffrey Molyneux, in
Download
News 2013/12 was equally full of praise. I reviewed the download
in an earlier edition –
here.
I’ve also been listening to a vintage recording from 1953 which won
a rosette in the Penguin Guide:
Mewton-Wood plays Twentieth Century
Piano Concertos on which Noel Mewton-Wood performs concerts by Bliss
(with Utrecht SO), Shostakovich (No.1 with Concert Hall SO) and Stravinsky
(Piano and Wind, with the Hague Residentie Orchestra) all conducted
by Walter Goehr (British Music Society BMS101CDH – download from
eclassical.com,
mp3 and lossless, no booklet, or stream from
Naxos
Music Library). Rob Barnett especially recommended the Bliss but
also appreciated the Shostakovich and Stravinsky –
review
– and John Quinn and the late Paul Shoemaker enjoyed various aspects
of this release, with the latter naming this as the finest recording
the Stravinsky ever received –
review.
That’s pretty formidable competition for the new recording, then, not
to mention the many very fine versions of
Petrushka: I’m going
to refer to it by that name rather than
Pétrouchka, as preferred
by Chandos. Stravinsky’s own performance is now imprisoned in a 7-CD
box which contains both the complete ballet and the suite (Sony 88697884142).
Equally good value but less bulky are the 4-CD and 2-CD incarnations
of Simon Rattle’s recording with the CBSO and Peter Donohoe (EMI/Warner
2427542: Bargain of the Month –
review and 9677112 –
review).
From all the alternatives I’ve chosen Mewton-Wood as my benchmark for
the Concerto, with Stephen Bishop, as he was then known, somewhere in
the back of my mind on a long-deleted Philips recording. Bavouzet and
Tortelier give it a jaunty performance, with plenty of power where it’s
needed, as at the end of the first movement. The second movement is
suitably evocative, the third reminiscent of
Histoire du Soldat
and there’s good support throughout from the São Paulo orchestra.
This is Tortelier’s second recording with the orchestra – the first
was a highly-regarded recording of Florent Schmitt (CHSA5147 –
review and
DL
Roundup: it’s not the conductor’s fault that I didn’t like the noisy
Psalm 47). It's Bavouzet’s first as far as I’m aware but the combination
works very well. In all three movements the new performance is a shade
faster than the Mewton-Wood – significantly so in the second movement
– but the chosen tempi work well and the recording is vastly superior
to 1953 mono.
In
Capriccio Bavouzet and Tortelier are mere seconds faster in
the first two movements than Osborne and Volkov and slightly slower
in the finale but there’s very little to choose between them overall
in terms of performance and recording. Both are available in 24-bit
sound as downloads, which is the version to which I listened, though
only the Chandos is available as an SACD, a format which Hyperion have
abandoned.
I have to confess that
Movements is one Stravinsky work that
I haven’t come to terms with: I’m no fan of serialism in any form, so
I can only report that Bavouzet and Osborne take very similar views
of the work and, in any case, it’s short. In the three works common
to both recordings you could hardly go wrong with either the Chandos
or the Hyperion and both come with booklets of a quality that we have
come to expect from both labels.
Choice, then, will depend on whether you prefer as coupling
Petrushka, here presented
in what Chandos call the 1946 revision – more usually referred to as the 1947
version – or the Concerto in D on Hyperion. Simon Rattle is generally
regarded as top dog in this version of
Petrushka and his recording comes inexpensively on
either the 4-CD or the 2-CD set (see above) but my own preference is for the
1911 original, as presented by Andrew Litton (BIS-SACD-1474: Recording of the
Month –
review).
The splendid 3-CD Kreizberg set of
Firebird,
Rite of Spring and
Petrushka (1947 version) which I made Recording of the Month (OPMC001
–
review)
seems to have disappeared already.
It’s not difficult to produce a very decent recording of this work –
there’s usually at least one in Radio 3’s afternoon schedule each week
– but few really outstanding ones. Tortelier comes very close to the
outstanding category. His performance takes a little time to gel but
really grabbed my attention from the start of Part Four, track 18 onwards,
and the 24-bit recording quality outshines anything you’re likely to
hear on Radio 3, in FM or DAB. I greatly regret the deletion of the
Kreizberg – snap it up if you can find a copy or download from
amazon.co.uk
– but this makes a very good replacement.
If the Chandos coupling appeals, you should buy with confidence. The
Hyperion collection of all the works for piano and orchestra is more
logical but, with the prominent piano part in
Petrushka, very
ably performed by Bavouzet here, the new recording has its own logic
too. Performance, recording and presentation of both are first-class.
Brian Wilson
