Search - Edvard Grieg, Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann :: Grieg, Schumann: Piano Concertos; Liszt: Fantasia on Hungarian Folk Themes

A VERY BRITISH PIANIST

DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 08/23/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Solomon was the kind of pianist who was particularly in critical favour when I started to get to know classical music back in the 1950's. At that time Horowitz and Michelangeli, to say nothing of Cziffra, were treated as outsiders -- very good technicians no doubt but a bit suspect for that very reason. The virtues that are to be found in Solomon's playing are largely associated with the quality of restraint, and his special admirers found in it a degree of inwardness, eloquence etc that it seems that the Almighty, with exemplary British fairness, had denied to players with more spectacular executant abilities. There is a lot I also admire and enjoy in Solomon's playing of these concertos, and I grant that he is guiltless of anything in the way of special showiness or excitement. I expect my general drift is getting over by now -- for me he is awfully bland. Just get hold of the thrilling Lipatti accounts of the same two concertos and ask yourself, in all honesty, if the contrast is not mortifying. Music-lovers who dislike exhibitionism in these works are recommended the versions by Moura Lympany, herself of course Cornish, (which I hope I can describe as British without giving offence.) As for Liszt, well, I cannot mention Cziffra in the same sentence as Solomon without laughing. If you want a fine British account of the Grieg in a rather more vivid mode, you will get a far more interesting one from Curzon. I am not aware whether Ogdon has done either of these pieces on record, but if I were asked to name a great British piano player his is the name that would occur to me. If I were asked to name my favourite accounts of these two concertos from what is a very strong field indeed, I would have no hesitation in pointing to the superb and quite unique versions by Cherkassky."