Benjamin Britten - Piano Concerto; Violin Concerto (Sviatoslav Richter; Mark Lubotsky)

Information

Composer: Benjamin Britten

• Piano Concerto, Op. 13
• Violin Concerto, Op. 15

Sviatoslav Richter, piano

Mark Lubotsky, violin

English Chamber Orchestra

Benjamin Britten, conductor

Date: 1970

Label: Decca

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Review

This record tempts me to name-dropping reminiscence! I bought the original LP in July 1971 and during the following month was in the composer's Aldeburgh home and referred not only to the issue itself but also JW's Gramophone review, in which he said that in the Piano Concerto Richter and Britten together brought out a certain Russianness and that, while he thought this was a performance likely to remain unrivalled on record, he ''would dearly like to hear Britten himself in the work''. Britten said that he agreed that there was a Russian flavour to the piece, but modestly added (with his typical wry smile) that although he had been able to play the solo part when he gave the premiere and other early performances, he certainly could not do so any longer. He added with some pride that Richter had learned the concerto ''entirely off his own bat''. The playing here is first rate: a crisp, vital and persuasive account of a work which, with its rather relentless bravura and 1930s brittleness, is not in my view really among Britten's best of the period.

The Violin Concerto composed a year later in Canada appeals to me more; it has much more openness of personal feeling and a final elegiac coda of haunting beauty. But there's still no shortage of virtuoso demands, and indeed Heifetz once asked Britten over a lunch to simplify it or allow him to do so! The composer resisted but was concerned enough to ask Manoug Parikian's advice, which was to leave it as it was. There are some demanding passages of which Lubotsky makes heavy weather (listen from the 1'34'' point of the first movement, for example) and like many other players he slows down considerably and very noticeably in the central scherzo from the marked—and elsewhere played—tempo of dotted crotchet = 104 in the notorious passage beginning at the 4'35'' mark, with its scales in double artificial harmonics. But if not quite in the class of Richter's, this is still a good performance which wears well and conveys the work's powerful feeling. Good sound in both concertos, recorded in The Maltings, Snape, and an attractive buy at mid price.

The recent Hyperion issue is well worth considering if the coupling of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto suits you. Servadei and Giunta with the LPO are more spacious in the Piano Concerto (taking three minutes longer overall) and often winningly sensitive, as in the quiet final statement of the first movement's main theme and the ''Waltz'' and ''Impromptu'' that are the two middle movements, but they offer plenty of brilliance too where it is needed.

— Christopher Headington

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Benjamin Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was a leading British composer, pianist and conductor. Trained at the Royal College of Music, he gained early acclaim with Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge and achieved international prominence with the opera Peter Grimes (1945). His major stage works include Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw, and Death in Venice, alongside innovative church parables such as Curlew River. Co-founder of the Aldeburgh Festival, he also composed celebrated song cycles, choral works including the War Requiem, and notable orchestral and chamber music.

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Sviatoslav Richter (March 20 [O.S. March 7] 1915 – August 1, 1997) was a Soviet pianist known for the depth of his interpretations, virtuoso technique, and vast repertoire. He is considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. Richter worked tirelessly to learn new pieces. His vast repertoire, around eighty different programs, not counting chamber works, ranged from Handel and Bach to Szymanowski, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky, Bartók, Hindemith, Britten, and Gershwin. Despite his large discography, Richter disliked the recording process, and most of Richter's recordings originate from live performances.

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Mark Lubotsky (18 May 1931 – 13 March 2021) was a Russian violinist and educator. Born in Leningrad, he studied at the Moscow Central Music School and later at the Moscow Conservatory with renowned teachers Abram Yampolsky and David Oistrakh. Lubotsky taught at the Gnesin Institute in Moscow before emigrating to the Netherlands in 1976, where he worked at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam and the Rotterdam Conservatory. He later taught in Germany at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg and was a notable advocate of composer Alfred Schnittke's music.

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