Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos, Nos. 1 & 2

Leif Ove Andsnes is a great pianist, equally at home in solo and chamber music, on stage and disc, in all styles and national idioms. His virtuosity is so unobtrusive, his control of touch and nuance so natural that the music seems to flow through him directly to the listener. His runs have a brilliant, feathery delicacy, but are always part of the musical fabric; his chords are powerful but never harsh. He brings to the Rachmaninov concertos on this record not only romantic sweep, grandeur, vitality, and expressive freedom, but an almost classical purity of line and clarity of texture. Only a great pianist who knew every resource of his instrument could have written these concertos. Hearing them together illustrates why the Second is so much more popular than the First. Written ten years later after a triumphant recovery from depression, it is more cohesive, less episodic; the melodies are more ravishing, the harmonies more evocative; the music seems to pour out in an irresistible stream of inspiration. Andsnes brings out all the exuberance, passion, melancholy and exaltation without letting sentiment lapse into sentimentality; his tempi are judicious, his liberties balanced, his contrasts restrained; there is never a trace of excess. He gives this luxurious, easily exaggerated music a rare sense of nobility, dignity and refinement. The great Berlin Philharmonic revels in the lush, colorful orchestration without swamping the music or the soloist. --Edith Eisler