Search - Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Richter :: Piano Concerto 1 / Piano Concerto in a Minor

The legacy of a genius!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 08/30/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have always enshrined every one of Richter's performances of Tchaikovsky 's Piano Concertos, DUE Richter has always new to offer us. In this case we are in front to a more wiser, contemplative, lyrical and enrapturing approach, is not as incisive, thundering and dazzling as the unmatchable version of 1958 with Mravisnky - Leningrad (Music and Arts CD 776). A complete decade elapsed among these two versions, but the genius of Richter enriched itself notably. Indeed, in those years Richter went to Western Hemisphere, made a great friendship with Glenn Gould, and collaborated with Benjamin Briten in Aldeburgh Festival 1964, you can feel a major approximation to the Beethovenian pathos (Remember his successful performance in Carnegie Hall May 1965) and a major understanding of the musical expression. His remarkable technique equipment joined with a major sensibility and sense of nuance.

His Grieg is extremely imaginative and innovator, he avoids to fall in this romantic rapture and overlong arpeggios to accent the romantic vein. His expressiveness is gotten by other means.

Tchaikovsky was recorded on April 9 1968 and Grieg March 23, 1964. In both cases Kyril Kondrashin, a famed Russian conductor accompanied by the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra.

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