Friday, 10.12.07, 4:32 pm
Washington Area Concerts
Ax Brahms
"New Releases" posts are regular columns that feature reviews of new CDs that are, for one reason or another, truly outstanding among the many I come across every month.
On October the 18th, Emanuel Ax will perform the Brahms Second Concerto with the NSO under the baton of Leonard Slatkin. As if timed, Sony Classics has just re-released the two Brahms concertos of Ax, the second of which had been much acclaimed and then only spottily available.The two concertos now come surrounded by most of Ax’s recorded solo piano pieces of Brahms – which is rather more attractive than the Yo-Yo Ma cello transcription of Brahms first violin sonata that used to accompany with the second concerto. As often the case with long unavailable material, the performances had taken on near-mythical status. And almost invariably, that status is much diminished when the recordings are again easy to obtain. When Herbert Blomstedt’s Sibelius recordings on Decca, the two 2-CD sets of which went for well over $50 on eBay, were available again, the realization set in that these performances are good – but perhaps not ‘greatness manifest’ or necessarily better than much of the fine competition.
The feeling listening to this set is similar; perhaps more unflattering. The performances are good, but how the first concerto under Levine with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra won the 1984 Grammy Award is rather difficult to discern in retrospect. The sound, for one, is a muffled low rumble. The performance is fine, genteel, dawdles along pleasantly, and strikes as unremarkable.
It is difficult to say whether a good performance of that concerto is made (or broken) by the pianist (as it is usually the case in concertos) or the conductor, who seems to have a special responsibility in the Brahms D-minor. Part of it certainly goes to the composer himself. His creation is decidedly not a ‘great concerto’ – but a ‘concerto with great music’. A quilt of great ideas with Brahms-unusual incoherence. All the more difficult is it to pull it off – and the last time I heard it well done in concert was almost exactly three years ago at the Kennedy Center when Pletnev established a great flow under Blomstedt’s baton.
The B-flat Major concerto op.83, about 20 years the D-minor’s junior, is much more of one piece. Ax recorded this in 1997 with Bernard Haitink and the Boston Symphony Orchestra – and I find it the much happier performance of the two on this budget friendly release. The sound, for one, is clear; not surprisingly, perhaps, given that Symphony Hall is a notably superior recording venue to Chicago’s Orchestra Hall. Haitink choses to stay in the background with his forces and lets Ax plow through the massive first two movements with the latter’s usual agility and unusual boldness. The gentler, toned down, and near-intimate beauty of the slow movement is delicately done, without anyone succumbing to undue sentimentality.
On record there are – for both concertos – the classic recordings of Fleisher/Szell (CBS/Sony) and Gilels/Jochum (DG), recently joined by Freire/Chailly (DG). Not to be scoffed at are Arrau/Haitink (Philips) with the latter at his most engaging – or Buchbinder/Harnoncourt (Warner) which sounds ever so fresh to these ears. All of which are likely preferred over Ax. In the first concerto alone the old Rubinstein/Reiner is a joy (RCA), as is the magnificent Clifford Curzon under George Szell (Decca) whereas the second concerto finds some of its great interpretations in Richter/Leinsdorf (RCA), Serkin/Szell (CBS/Sony) – and, well, maybe Ax/Hatink (Sony).
Promising enough, certainly, to expect something wonderful from the concerts on the 18th, 19th, or 20th. Not the least because Leonard Slatkin throws in a specialty of his in the form of Vaughan-Williams’ Sixth Symphony.