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Lisitsa has recorded all four Rachmaninov piano concertos and the Paganini Rhapsody with the London Symphony Orchestra and Michael Francis. Lisitsa describes the recording as “arguably the most ambitious piano-orchestra project a pianist can undertake in a lifetime. The sheer variety of emotions and styles touched upon is encyclopaedic.”
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There are just shy of 400 recordings of the Rhapsody currently available in one form or another. The composer’s own classic account was made on Christmas Eve 1934 with the Philadelphia and Stokowski. Sergey Rachmaninov rejected a large number of individual takes and complete recordings during the course of his career. Significantly, on this occasio...
A very different mood is created by Arthur Rubinstein in his 1956 recording with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He sees the Rhapsody as more ominous and sinister, the ‘Dies irae’ theme acquiring a greater significance than its place as a subsidiary role. I found it disappointingly dour and studio-bound. We shall also have to pass ...
The first thing that strikes you about William Kapell’s much-lauded account with Fritz Reiner and the Robin Hood Dell Orchestra of Philadelphia in his 1951 recording (RCA, 5/54) is the boomy acoustic. True, there is greater orchestral detail than on many more recent recordings – largely due to Reiner’s infallible ear rather than microphone placemen...
The award for the most underrated version of this work goes to Leonard Pennario with the Boston Pops Orchestra under Arthur Fiedler. Recorded at Symphony Hall, Boston, in May 1963, the Rhapsody was Pennario’s debut on RCA. It is a performance that fulfils every criterion above – including the final glissando, the four bars of fortissimooctave trill...
While Denis Matsuev uses the full sonority of his instrument to compelling effect, he lacks the playfulness of the composer, Moisewitsch and Wild, plays fast and loose with Rachmaninov’s dynamics and has trouble cultivating a true pianissimotone anywhere. His partners are Valery Gergiev and his Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra. The same conductor and or...
Apparently, Vladimir Ashkenazyand André Previn simply played the work twice in the studio and decided no patching was needed. It shows. It is another classic account which from long affection I find hard not to place on the winner’s pedestal. Never mind ‘listen up!’ – the Introduction grabs you by the scruff of the neck: this is going to be a story...
One purpose of these pages is to choose the recording which presents the score as clearly as possible in a performance that transcends the bounds of the studio, is well balanced/recorded, has something vital and maybe individual to say about the music and which invites repeated listening. To nail the Introduction, Theme and all 24 variations faultl...
Yuja Wang; Mahler CO / Abbado (DG) To quote my original review, ‘The technical demands of the Rhapsody (Var 24 for example) hold no terrors for [Yuja Wang], of course, and her trademark impetuosity, which she injects into the bravura variations, is thrilling. But, more importantly, she is also an artist with that unteachable ability to tug at the e...
Byron Janis; ORTF PO / Froment (EMI) Byron Janis, still with us at 91, was in his prime aged 40 when he recorded this, just five years before psoriatic arthritis effectively ended his career. He relishes every moment of the virtuoso solo part and the persistent camera angle from above allows you see exactly what a physically demanding one it is. El...
Stephen Hough; Dallas SO / Litton (Hyperion) Stephen Hough is blessed in having a pianist-conductor who wears his (considerable) learning lightly and has himself long relished the delights, hidden and otherwise, of Rachmaninov’s superlative orchestration. And simultaneously – somehow – everyone seems to be getting off on the whole thing.
- Jeremy Nicholas
The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, (Russian: Рапсодия на тему Паганини, Rapsodiya na temu Paganini) is a concertante work written by Sergei Rachmaninoff for piano and orchestra, closely resembling a piano concerto, all in a single movement. Rachmaninoff wrote the work at his summer home, the Villa Senar in ...
Oct 10, 2013 · The Paganini Rhapsody finds her in particularly good form, and with the first concerto, it is the best performance in this set and very enjoyable from start to finish. The London Symphony Orchestra play well and give tight, lovely support to Lisitsa under Michael Francis (right), but the young UK conductor doesn’t add any insights to the music and his role remains mainly supportive.
Rachmaninov: The Piano Concertos – Paganini Rhapsody. Valentina Lisitsa, piano ... Michael Francis, conductor ... Rachmaninov Shostakovich Piano Concertos No.5 & No.2.
Oct 3, 2018 · It was the summer of 1934. At his villa in Switzerland near Lake Lucerne, Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 comprised of 24 variations. The Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski, premiered the work in November, 1934 with Rachmaninoff himself as soloist in Baltimore. It was an immediate success.
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Nov 10, 2017 · If you know any piece by 19 th – and 20 th -century Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, chances are it’s his hit concerto-like work for piano and orchestra, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. The work takes its inspiration from arguably the most famous of Niccolò Paganini’s Caprices for violin, Caprice No. 24. Video unavailable. Watch on ...
