"Rubinstein: Piano Concerto No 4; plus encore pieces. Shura Cherkassky (piano), Royal Philharmonic/Vladimir Ashkenazy. Decca 448 063 2 (76 mins) Dial a track code 1751
Following Shura Cherkassky's death in December at the age of 86, this new CD can be seen as a posthumous celebration of the remarkable Russian pianist's idiosyncratic playing by illustrating appropriately two different facets and periods of his work. More than any other pianist of our age, Cherkassky used to be dubbed "the last of the great romantics", and the major work here is a 1994 recording of Anton Rubinstein's fourth and most successful piano concerto. This once held a firm place in the concert repertoire but its popularity has long faded, and it has now become the province of pianists who specialise in the rediscovery of "the lost romantics".
It's the sort of music which has the trappings of musical substance, but not the substance itself. Cherkassky's pianistically resourceful way with the music is most unusual, more affectionate than flamboyant, so that, with sympathetic accompaniment from Ashkenazy and the RPO, Rubinstein - rarely feels to be straining after effects he cannot deliver. And the "note spinning" for which the composer has so often been pilloried benefits greatly from Cherkassky's characteristic search for hidden melodic lines and his reluctance to plan anything the same way twice.
The rest of the disc was recorded in 1974, and is given over to romantic encores, a Cherkassky speciality. Here the name of Godowsky, notorious for the difficulty of his arrangements, dominates.
Bruckner: Symphony No 5. Vienna PO/Claudio Abbado. DG 445 87-2 (71 mins)
Dial-a-track code: 1861
Claudio Abbado's new account of Bruckner's Fifth, recorded live with the Vienna Philharmonic in 993, gets oft to a bad start. Much of the first movement is pressured, even forced, blowing hot and cold (or, rather, alternately over energised and slack) so that any feeling what is usually referred to as the music's architectural span is cruelly fractured. It's as it Abbado somehow doesn't trust the piece, is out of sorts with the pacing it demands and even the plain of the Vienna Philharmonic, strings can sound uncharacteristically constricted. And if things are somewhat better in the later movements. It's really a matter of improving from a low starting base.
The Vienna Philharmonic is to be found on much better form in reissued recordings of the Third and Fourth Symphonies made under Karl Bohm in the early 1970s (in the Double Decca, two for the price of one series on 4480-98-2, 124 mins, Dial-a-track code: 1971). These readings - the Third in its shortest version, of 1889 - are steady, noble, resplendent, and the coupling is extremely attractive at the price.
Oddly, given the quirks of record company pricing, two recent Philips Bruckner reissues by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Eduard van Beinum work out rather dearer, although the recordings date from the mid 1950s and must be among the last commercial recordings of Bruckner by a major orchestra to have been taped in mono. Like many recordings made in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw hall the recorded balances in Bruckner's Eighth and Ninth Symphonies (at mid price on 442 730-2, 72 mins, Dial-a-track code: 2081 and 442 731-2, 58 mins, Dial-a-track code: 2191 respectively) carry a pleasing, aura of hall ambience. And Beinum's unfussy, unfussed manner bespeaks a faith in the music which helps him get right to the heart of the matter.
Nietzsche: Songs, piano pieces, melodrama. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone), Aribert Reimann (piano), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elmar Budde (piano duet).
Philips 426 863-2 (61 mins)
Dial-a-track code: 2301
Yes, this new Philips collection is exactly what it appears to be a selection of musical works by the philosopher Nietzsche. It's really rather homely stuff, I'm afraid, the sort that would hardly, garner a moment's attention were, it not for the non musical fame of its author. It will interest the unquenchably curious, investigators of melodrama (for its single example of spoken text with music) and dedicated followers of Fischer Dieskau.
