Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; Sergei Rachmaninov - Piano Concertos (Arcadi Volodos)

Information

Composer: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; Sergei Rachmaninov

• Tchaikosky - Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23
• Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Arcadi Volodos, piano

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Seiji Ozawa & James Levine, conductors

Date: 2002; 1999

Label: Sony Classical

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Review

Great pianist as he undoubtedly is, Arcadi Volodos is a cool customer, particularly when it comes to Tchaikovsky. Clearly in no hurry to record (this new Sony album is only his fifth in six years), he avoids all tub-thumping Romantic rhetoric and nonchalantly bypasses every difficulty with an ease that can leave you open-mouthed.

At the same time you could say that this performance is disappointingly featureless. Volodos and Ozawa commence the ‘greatest of all battles for piano and orchestra’ at a pace that is too fast to be andante non troppo let alone maestoso, and if some will liken it to a fresh breeze blowing across pages that can all too easily become ponderous and over-weighted, others will surely long for a higher degree of engagement. True, the second subject is elegantly shaded and inflected and the Andantino’s central Prestissimo flight is tossed aside with a flick of the wrist that will make others pale with envy. Again, the finale’s octave run commencing at 3'42" is of an astonishing fleetness and agility, the seeming remoteness of manner at once emphasising the calibre of Volodos’s pianistic triumph. But at the sostenuto molto at 1'59" in the same movement his repeated forte-piano decrescendo (it is marked pianissimo) sounds suspiciously like a well-learned trick rather than a committed gesture and, overall, this performance is very much for those who are willing to sacrifice individual character and temperament for a more impersonal expertise.

...

The fine recording of the Tchaikovsky is taken from a live concert and, whether silken or explosive, Ozawa and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra follow their soloist to the letter and spirit of his interpretation. As for Volodos, few pianists have worn their mastery so lightly; a not entirely unmixed blessing.

-- Bryce Morrison

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Straight into the top flight of Rachmaninov Thirds goes Arcadi Volodos’s recording, live from the Berlin Philharmonie last year. No doubt about that. To the top of the top flight? Not quite. And no doubt in my mind about that either.

So many things about it are distinguished and thrilling. The flowing tempo of the opening bars and the subtle assertion of soloistic presence augur well. I don’t much care for the way Volodos slows the end of the first mini-cadenza, towards 2'40'', but at least Levine ensures that the following orchestral transition keeps moving (how often conductors wallow here and break the back of the structure). Otherwise Volodos’s phrasing is consummately tasteful, all the way through to the cadenza. His textures are superbly graded, his tone never glaring, even under the pressure of torrents of notes. So what if he doesn’t feel obliged to follow the tempos the composer chose for his 1939-40 recording? Why should he, when he has such a fine grasp of the structure? There is the feeling of a deep intake of breath as the development starts, and the cadenza (the ‘big’ original one) opens with a darkly idiomatic frown, suggesting limitless strength in reserve.

All is well, in fact, until mid-way in the cadenza, where Volodos inserts a hiatus before the Allegro molto (at 11'08''). It sounds terribly calculated, as does the way he steers the cadenza towards its main climax (hear the incomparable Lazar Berman at this point, if you can find his deleted Sony disc). Of course, a couple of mannerisms in a performance are neither here nor there. And if Volodos takes the end of the first-movement subito piu mosso, rather than poco accelerando al fine, that’s no more cavalier than many of the great exponents of the past. What does bother me – and I felt this increasingly in the slow movement and the finale – is that such initiatives don’t always feel part of an organically conceived interpretation (the composer himself remains the touchstone here). Nor do they register as spontaneous expressions of temperament or inspiration (in which respect Argerich is without peer). Just a whiff of self-consciousness can be enough to cancel out a host of poetic or virtuosic touches. So while I’m sure I’m as amazed as any listener, and as envious as any pianist, at the clarity and velocity Volodos can bring to the toccata from 7'20'' in the finale, in the overall context it feels like a gratuitous display. That’s just the most conspicuous example. In some ways I was surprised to hear the applause at the end (there is some very mild coughing on the way), because the performance, fine though it is, has the feel of the studio rather than a live occasion, not least because it is so fantastically clean.

Overall then this is not a world-beater, but certainly one to assess at the highest level. I have nothing but praise for the BPO’s wonderfully cushioned but never complacent accompaniment and for Levine’s avoidance of all the usual pitfalls. The piano is quite forwardly balanced, so that every tiniest note emerges bright as a new pin; and given how wonderfully Volodos shapes everything, that didn’t bother me, although I did occasionally feel I wasn’t hearing the orchestra in its full glory. One or two woodwind solos sound artificially spotlit, but not outrageously so.

-- David Fanning

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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Romantic Russian composer. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin. Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky's life was punctuated by personal crises and depression.

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Sergei Rachmaninov (1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1873 – 28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. He is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. His music was influenced by Tchaikovsky, Arensky and Taneyev. Rachmaninov wrote five works for piano and orchestra: four concertos and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. He also composed a number of works for orchestra alone, including three symphonies, the Symphonic Dances Op. 45, and four symphonic poems.

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Arcadi Volodos (born 24 February 1972) is a Russian-born French pianist. He studied piano with Galina Eguiazarova at the Moscow Conservatory Music College, with Jacques Rouvier at the Paris Conservatory, and with Dmitri Bashkirov and Galina Eguiazarova at the Reina Sofía School of Music. Despite the relative brevity of his formal studies, Volodos has rapidly moved into the elite pantheon of the world's most distinguished pianists. He received the German award Echo Klassik as the best instrumentalist of 2003, and four Gramophone Awards for best instrumental recordings in 1999, 2010, 2014 and 2018.

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