Search - Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, Lorin Maazel, Vladimir Ashkenazy :: Scriabin: le Poème De L'Extase/Piano Concerto/Prometheus

Essential recording

Josef Krebs | Seattle | 04/03/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Superb playing from Ashkenazy in the concerto - tender and warm in the center movement, harsh and angular where called for - and wonderful conducting from Maazel in the bigger two numbers. Especially hair-raising is the "poem of ecstasy", pairing the Cleveland Orchestra's amazing technique with Maazel's pounding passion and x-ray precision. Thrilling music, thrillingly recorded. Don't bother to buy another."

Still the Best Recording of these Works

Josef Krebs | 02/15/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Hot stuff-- absolutely thrilling performances with all the big, speaker-busting impact you want from the climaxes, but beautiful restraint in the soft sections. Superior playing from orchestra, pianist and chorus-- one of my favorite CDs."

In absence of Badura Skoda' s crowned version this is a well

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 11/18/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I must regret the incredible forgetfulness that still seems to persist in which concerns the imminent release of the most superb version ever made of this Concerto under the prodigious hands and artistic commitment offered by the legendary Austrian pianist Paul Badura Skoda in the Fifties directed by Rodzinski the Philharmonic Symphonic Orchestra. I still keep a copy in vinyl and I will have to make my own transfer to CD format.



In this sense the offered performance of Ashkenazy is a very worthy version that remains to a considerable distance from the 'previously commented version. There is something undefined in the craft of this consecrated pianist, maybe his excess of intellectualism and rigid coldness interpretative, but this Scriabin Concert needs to be played with ardor and vital sensitivity, the Romanticism approach does not fit accurately in the conception of this work, because the Romantic Russian mood includes besides an invisible nostalgia that needs to be underlined despite it is not visible at the score, but that guarantees the adequate achievement, and despite I am not a musician, this opinion is supported by the wide domain of his entire piano works that somehow give us some determining clues.



Go for this in absence of Paul Badura Skoda performance.



The rest of the CD is very intersting. Maazel 's steeled approach fits accurately in this case.



"