Search - Beethoven, Giles :: Piano Concertos Nos.1-5

The young lion of the keyboard

03/26/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Gilels was 42 when he played this Beethoven cycle, and his peformances here place him firmly in the young-lion-of-the-keyboard school of Beethoven playing. Tempos are generally fast, but not excessively so (except in the Emperor, where forward momentum is not leavened by more relaxed moments). Other pianists, such as Schnabel, have also embraced the bolder aspects of Beethoven's writing and still tapped into the lyrical and reflective aspects as well. And although Gilels' technique is of a high order, there are rocky passages (notably in the Emperor finale). But these are live performances, and I would gladly trade a letter-perfect, too respectful performance for the excitement and passion that the audience seems to have brought out in Gilels. I find his no-nonsence, damn-the-torpedoes approach to be a tonic for the too-careful, pompous, and portentous/pretentious readings that I hear too often nowadays. (It seems to me that profound music is diminished if you try to make it sound profound.) And he had in Kurt Sanderling a conductor that was on the same wavelength. (It is hard to believe that this is the same Kurt Sanderling that gave too many lethargic performances in Los Angeles during the Eighties.)"