All Artists: Brahms, Van Cliburn Title: Piano Concerto 1 Members Wishing: 0 Total Copies: 0 Label: RCA Release Date: 2/13/1990 Genre: Classical Styles: Forms & Genres, Concertos Number of Discs: 1 SwapaCD Credits: 1 UPC: 090266035724 |
Brahms, Van Cliburn Piano Concerto 1 Genre: Classical
This mindless interpretation really highlights Van Cliburn's weaknesses as an interpreter. One of the most difficult concertos ever written from a purely musical point of view, this Brahms piece offers Cliburn virtually no... more » | |
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Amazon.com This mindless interpretation really highlights Van Cliburn's weaknesses as an interpreter. One of the most difficult concertos ever written from a purely musical point of view, this Brahms piece offers Cliburn virtually no opportunity to display the type of emotion and rhapsodic expression that the pianist brought to just about everything else he did. The result, in this case, is stylistically out of sync with the music, particularly in the first movement. Not recommended. --David Hurwitz |
CD ReviewsA Poor Effort by Cliburn Michael B. Richman | Portland, Maine USA | 08/29/2000 (3 out of 5 stars) "It seems people love to hate Van Cliburn. Whether it was because of his meteoric rise to fame at a young age, his heart-throb selling power or his ebullient playing style, he definitely has his critics. Personally, I love Cliburn. I think his Brahms 2nd, Rach 2nd and "Emperor" Concertos with Reiner, Tchaikovsky 1st with Kondrashin, and Grieg and Liszt Concertos with Ormandy are all incredible recordings. But this recording of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 only gives fuel to the critics' fire. Simply put, it's pretty disappointing. This Concerto is not particularly suited to Cliburn's playing style, and it is particularly evident in the exchanges between the solo piano parts and those of the full orchetra in the first movement, which often sound like two entirely different, competing pieces of music. (The power struggle between pianist and conductor in the first movement of this Concerto has happened before, most famously in a Gould/Bernstein live performance recently issued on CD by Sony.) My recommendation is to instead get the Curzon/Szell account, most recently available on CD in the "Decca Legends" series. Curzon better handles the Concerto's darker passages with a more appropriate and forceful style, and there the interplay between soloist and conductor is certainly more uniform, not only in the first movement but throughout the entire performance."
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