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.
Exclusive Sony Classical pianist Murray Perahia releases this collection of the keyboard concertos of J.S Bach. Celebrated by his fans and media alike on first release, several of the concertos have been unavailable for some time and make a welcome return to the catalogue, The set contains some of Perahia’s all-time best-selling recordings.
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.
Originally recorded for the small Music Masters label in the early '90s, this set of Bach's keyboard concertos was among a series of choice Music Masters items reissued by Nimbus late in the first decade of the 21st century. The Russians have never been known for Bach, but this is a solid traversal that can be recommended to anyone wanting to hear these concertos on a piano accompanied by modern instruments. Despite these forces, there is a good deal of influence from the British historical-instrument movement apparent here; the crisp string playing avoids any hint of Romantic sheen, and Feltsman is very subtle in his introduction of purely pianistic elements. The long notes in the slow movements tend to be just a bit more extended than would be possible on a harpsichord, and Feltsman thus creates a smooth, pearly texture that's quite lyrical. In several of the finales he pushes the tempo to high speeds, creating an entirely different effect on a piano that the music would have on a harpsichord.
These three piano concertos are constructed from sonatas by J C Bach. Mozart's poetic lightness of touch he later developed to a very high standard as yet to materialize. Yet they are delightful pieces without the emotion and drama of concertos to come. The disc also features Johann Samuel Schrother's piano concerto in C major, Op. 3 no. 3 a contempary of Mozart. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote the concerto's cadenzas.
"The trees are coming into leaf/Like something almost being said." Taking a cue from these lines of Philip Larkin, pianist Simone Dinnerstein casts her album of the music of J.S. Bach and Franz Schubert in poetic terms. Her understanding of the composers is summed up in her own words: "The music of Bach and Schubert share a distinctive quality, as if wordless voices were singing textless melodies." Of course, Bach and Schubert were masters of setting texts to profoundly expressive music, so it is fruitful to look for the lyrical impulse in their keyboard works and appropriate to find songful interpretations. Yet Dinnerstein doesn't merely serve up rhapsodic renditions or treat the music as some kind of tuneful vehicle for idiosyncratic or personal reveries. Her playing is quite in character for both composers, and her treatment of the material is far from self-indulgent.
This lavish box set contains a whopping 68 discs, a hardcover book, and five DVDs; in short, it's Murray Perahia's entire recorded career through 2010. Although the title says "The First 40 Years," the final disc in the set is a Vox Turnabout disc of Mozart chamber music that Perahia recorded with Boris Kroyt and Harold Wright in 1967, but not released until 1976. Chamber music is not something Perahia is usually known for, nor is vocal music.
There are many listeners who have come to cherish Murray Perahia's Bach, to treasure the fleetness of his fingers, the delicacy of his touch, and the beauty of his tone. There are many listeners who are deeply moved by Perahia's recording of the Goldberg Variations, who hear tragic depths in its first groups of variations, consummate wit in final variations, and heartbreaking nostalgia in the return of the theme.
After playing and conducting Bach's concertos for solo keyboard, Perahia now turns his attention to a pair of similarly scored concertos which involve a couple of excellent colleagues. Except for instrument purists who insist on harpsichords and other period instruments, no Bach lover is likely to have any trouble with the sound of these performances. They are lucidly and expressively played, and every important line is clearly audible.