Vlado Perlemuter

I was interested to see that the Toccata from Pour le Piano comes not from the December 1985 session but from one made in May the following year. I assume either he didn’t record it in December or (more likely?) he was dissatisfied with the results. Inevitably Perlemuter slowed as he aged. There is a BBC broadcast of Pour le piano from 1968 (issued in the BBC Music Magazine) in which things are very much more vital and zestful, in which articulation is crisper and the results very different from the invariably more laboured playing here.

Vlado Perlemuter's association with the piano music of Ravel contributed considerably to his international celebrity - and yet at the same time it obscured the scope of an art that also resonated closely with the musical worlds of Chopin, Fauré, Debussy, and indeed with Schumann, Beethoven, Liszt and Mozart. The sobriety and reserve of Perlemuter's playing were often taken for coldness by a public that proved to be more sensitive to the flamboyance of an Alfred Cortot or a Samson François than to the poetry of an art made up of the tension of self-effacement before the ineffable quality of the work. However, his peers were not wrong, from Arthur Rubinstein to Yehudi Menuhin, from Dinu Lipatti to Henri Barda, from Pierre Boulez to Claudio Arrau.

Ravel - Piano Works - Vlado Perlemuter (1973) {2CD Set Nimbus NI 7713/4 rel 1996}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 329 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 296 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 43 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1973, 1996 Wyastone Estate / Nimbus Records | NI 7713/4
Classical / Impressionism / Early 20th Century / Piano

This set has been a favorite with critics since it was issued in 1979. Vlado Perlemuter studied Ravel's music with the composer. His approach is more colorful and dramatic than that of many other pianists. All the rigorous classical form Ravel used comes through, but so does a powerful musical personality. Just try, for example, the Toccata from Le Tombeau de Couperin, where Perlemuter builds up to a thrilling climax. The sound is more resonant than ideal, but this is still the best recording of Ravel's piano works ever made. Perlemuter's own Vox mono versions are poorly recorded; stick with the Nimbus edition.