Search - Brahms, Schubert, Firkusny :: Piano Concerto 1 / Symphony 8

Superb Brahms reissue

Precession | 02/19/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This concerto is one of the most difficult to interpret in the repertoire, and the performance on this disc is one of the most successful ever recorded. When it was first issued in the fifties, critics rated it above the existing recommendations of artists like Curzon, Backhaus and Wuehrer, pointing to the sweep and intensity of the soloist's playing and the unaffected grandeur of Steinberg's accompaniment. The comments remain as true today as then, and few of the recorded performances made in the subsequent forty five years have equalled it, either. I like the Moravec / Belohlávek and Pollini / Abbado versions, but as a performance I still put this right at the top.Neither soloist, conductor or orchestra is in the very best-known league, but all are outstanding, as is the co-operation between them. Firku?ný had started his career before the second world war in Europe, with many performances in Prague, where Steinberg was an established conductor. Clearly the two were in great sympathy. Don't miss this.The coupling is also good - a sober and straightforward version of the Schubert Unfinished Symphony, showing off some excellent soloists in the Pittsburgh Orchestra of the early fifties.The only regret is that no stereo version seems to have been made of the Brahms despite its 1955 date - EMI had begun using stereo some time before. And why didn't Firku?ný ever record the work again (so far as I know) despite keeping it in his repertoire until his death in the nineties? Perhaps he felt he could never equal this version, one of the high points of his recorded career."