Perahia Mendelessohn

This Chopin recital represents Murray Perahia's return to the Sony studios after a two-year absence due to serious injury. So may I start by saying that this is surely the greatest, certainly the richest, of all his many and exemplary recordings. Once again his performances are graced with rare and classic attributes and now, to supreme clarity, tonal elegance and musical perspective, he adds an even stronger poetic profile, a surer sense of the inflammatory rhetoric underpinning Chopin's surface equilibrium. In other words the vividness and immediacy are as remarkable as the finesse. And here, arguably, is the oblique but telling influence of Horowitz who Perahia befriended during the last months of the old wizard's life.

Recorded over 13 years between 1975 and 1988, Murray Perahia's cycle of the complete piano concertos of Mozart, including the concert rondos and double concertos, remains perhaps the most enduring monument to his art. What is it about Perahia's art, some skeptics might ask, that is worth enduring? For one thing, as this 12-disc set amply demonstrates, there is his incredible tone.

Perahia’s immaculate technique, stylistic surety, and classical symmetry are remarkably consistent. While his tone is always singing and rounded, lyrical melodies and decorative passages alike convey a slight diamond-like edge to the peak of crescendos or an emphatic accent. This helps achieve an attractive fusion of unruffled poise and dramatic tension. You hear this quite readily in the B-flat K. 456 concerto ‘s first movement, or in the carefully pedaled trills and restatement of the main theme in K. 595’s heavenly Larghetto, also sampled here. Perahia’s symbiotic musical rapport with Radu Lupu in the two-piano concerto and the two-piano version of the concerto for three pianos should not go unmentioned.

– Jed Distler

Soloist-conducted piano concertos can sometimes mean compromise, even chaos…but not in this case. Indeed, the playing of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields under Murray Perahia is even sprightlier than on a rival EMI recording of the same repertoire where Sir Neville Marriner conducts and Andrei Gavrilov plays the keyboard part. As soloist, Perahia is his usual stylish, discreet and pianistically refined self. He takes the D minor Concerto’s opening at a fair lick, a hot-foot sprinter embellishing the line with taste and affecting a little ritardando at 3'21 (just as the mood momentarily brightens) a la Edwin Fischer.

I was amazed to discover this wonderful performance of Schubert's D.959, by a pianist who I usually consider a bad Schubertist (in the Impromptus and last sonata, for example). In this work, however, he seems to get the very essence of the music. I've listened to many good and bad recordings of the work, notably Uchida, Eschenbach, Bolet (good performances) as well as Serkin, Brendel (worse, to my taste) and many others. The only good rival of this performance is another surprise: the romantic Liszt expert Jorge Bolet (Decca, not released on CD). Perahia seems to understand Schubert magnificently in this sonata.

This disc received the 1998 Cannes Classical Music Awards for "Record of the Year" and "Best Instrumental Solo or Chamber Performance - 17th/18th Centuries." It also received the 1997 Gramophone magazine award for "Best Instrumental Recording," was Gramophone's "Recording of the Month" for May 1997, and was nominated for the 1998 Grammy Award for "Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra)."

During the 1720s, Bach grouped his harpsichord suites into two sets of six each and assembled a third, that was newly composed. These compositions have survived as the English Suites, French Suites and Partitas. Only the Partitas were published in Bach's lifetime. The English Suites are the earliest of these keyboard works and three of them are the focus of this recording by pianist Murray Perahia. There is nothing especially "English" about these works and their misleading title is one that was never known by Bach. Dubious titles notwithstanding, the works are marvels of invention that marry intellectually challenging contrapuntal lines to sublime melodies. Perahia wisely says the suites are "heart and mind connected."

Radu Lupu and Murray Perahia should have recorded all of Mozart's piano music for four hands, which includes several neglected masterpieces. This disc reflects their ideal partnership, two artists of great sensitivity collaborating in performances that feature constant interplay of parts, alertness to each other's work, and superb playing as individuals. The Concerto for Two Pianos ripples along without a care in the world, just as it should, and the English Chamber Orchestra doesn't seem to care that nobody is conducting it. The pieces without orchestra are a bit less significant (as is the Concerto for Three Pianos), but the playing is so beautiful you won't care.

This is the best recording of both Schumann's and Schubert's fantasies. Perahia plays Schubert Fantasy with such clarity, delicacy and sophistication that Pollini's Wanderer Fantasy sounds flat and bland. (well, all the recordings by early Pollini are super flat without any depth anyways). Richter's Schubert Fantasy is one of the best around, yet Perahia does it with extra flair and depth. Perahia sounds even better with Schumann as his Schumann always sounds impeccable. Perahia gives so much air to the fantasy and the music flows just so naturally. Richter's Schumann sounds a bit too self-indulgent to me.

Listen to the music first! Perahia's booklet essay is a dry musicological treatise concerned with technical aspects of Bach's music. His performance, on the other hand, is filled with life and excitement. The kind of overt virtuosity heard in some of these variations has been a rarity in Perahia's recordings, but it shows how wide a range he intends to cover in his playing of this masterpiece. Unlike Glenn Gould, who is most listeners' touchstone for piano performances of the Goldbergs, Perahia takes Bach's necessary repeats and uses them as occasions for adventure, varying not only the emphases, but also the actual notes.