Search - Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Liszt :: Preludes / Sonata in B Minor Op 58

Superb Liszt/Chopin/Rachmaninov by Anievas at Budget Price

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 04/07/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This budget twofer is practically self-recommending for those of us who have, over the years, admired the playing of American pianist, Agustin Anievas, the long-time head of the piano department at the Brooklyn College (CUNY) conservatory of music. I shall never forget a spectacular recital I heard perhaps forty years ago which included his burnished traversal of Chopin's Op. 10 études, which he later recorded brilliantly along with the Op. 25 études. The present recordings, made in the early 1970s, were reissued in 1996 in remastered sound that seems to me to be an improvement over that of their earlier incarnation. And the performances are vintage Anievas. He has always been known for a suavity of tone coupled with technical brilliance and musical insight, and that certainly is the case here. And what repertoire we have here! The two big romantic piano sonatas in B minor - Liszt's and the Third of Chopin - along with a large serving of Rachmaninov, including his treasurable 'Polka on a Theme by W. R.' ('W. R.' being his father Vassily [or Wassily in the German spelling]), the three rarely heard 'Nocturnes', and the Préludes, Opp. 23 & 32 as well as the super-famous C sharp minor, Op. 3, No. 2.For me, his Rachmaninov Préludes are on a par with those of Constance Keene, long my benchmark for these works. (And why do we never hear of her anymore?) They are elegant, natural, not overly romantic but still able to sweep one along. He tends to use rather more pedal than some, but it is not only not obtrusive but it never obscures the inner workings of Rachmaninov's sometimes dense textures.As to the Chopin Third, I can only say that the final movement is itself worth the price of this budget release. Talk about sweeping one along!But don't get me started on the Liszt B minor. I've recently been defending attacks on this sonata by some who consider Liszt to be the ultimate Philistine. I contend that this sonata is one of the high points of 19th-century pianistic writing. I've been listening to numbers of recordings of it and have to say that Anievas's account is among my favorites. Somehow he manages to convey its rather histrionic rhetoric without going over the top, something that others cannot seem to avoid. This balance of Dionysian fervor with Apollonian restraint speaks directly to me.There is not a weak moment in this 2+ hour program and I recommend it eagerly.Scott Morrison"