Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

[Barbirollians]

Picked up Rubinstein’s set of Great Piano Concertos 12CDs for £11.99 from Amazon .

Have enjoyed reacquainting myself with his recording of this terrifically enjoyable and tuneful old warhorse with Reiner. Probably still my favourite over Trifonov and Ashkenazy- what is yours ?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Rachmaninoff/Philadelphia O/Stokowski

[Barbirollians]

Rachmaninoff/Philadelphia O/Stokowski

Of course but all his recordings have rather primitive mono sound .

[cloughie]

Katchen LPO Boult in either the mono or the later stereo recrding!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Of course but all his recordings have rather primitive mono sound .

I can cope - and it's still my favourite

Wild/RPO/Horenstein if Stereo is a must; Trifonov/Philadelphia/Nézet-Séguin if digital.

[LMcD]

There's a wonderful performance on Youtube by Stephen Hough recorded at the Proms in 2013.

[Richard Tarleton]

There was an amusing BAL with David Owen Norris a few years ago - he basically took a screwdriver to it and dismantled it, saying it was a bit blokey and tecchy - not that that was a bad thing, necessarily, but that female pianists scarcely ever seemed to bother with it (I think Christina Ortiz was about the only one he sampled). Can't remember who won.

I have the Ashkenazy/Previn that I got from Britannia Records () about 30 years ago, but can't remember when I last played it (the piece turns up often enough on the radio). I went to a mighty performance by Gary Graffman 46 years ago

[LMcD]

I have the Thibaudet/Ashkenazy/Cleveland recording, but - as in your case - I can't remember the last time I played it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There was an amusing BAL with David Owen Norris a few years ago - he basically took a screwdriver to it and dismantled it, saying it was a bit blokey and tecchy - not that that was a bad thing, necessarily, but that female pianists scarcely ever seemed to bother with it (I think Christina Ortiz was about the only one he sampled). Can't remember who won.

Rafael Orozco/Edo de Waart/RPO (I have that recording, too , a smidgen hard-driven for me).

The transcript of DON's BaL (from January 2003) is available as a download here:

https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/184907/

It is full of DONisms (note the reference to Thalben-Ball at the start - did he make a recording or an arrangement of the work? No; but it sets up a joke about organists that DON can't resist). He notes that at the time there are only three women who have recorded the work, Ousset (with CBSO/Rattle), Ilana Vered (LSO/Vonk) and ... he doesn't say.

Only three women have recorded Rakhmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody, which is particularly surprising even in the male-dominated record business. ... It seems to me that there’s something about the piece that may make it unappealing to women - perhaps listeners as much as players. And I think it may be something to do with its slightly obsessive structure - much admired by all these exclusively male liner-note writers - and the pacing of its climaxes - you recall how Ilana Vered couldn’t believe it was all over so quickly.

... which I think was meant as a self-mocking reflection on his own earlier comments on the tonal and contrapuntal structure of the work:

I want to take a moment to look back at how Rakhmaninov has ordered his music. Those first six variations fused together to make a sharp point to start with. When he added the Dies irae , he didn’t change key or metre, he just slowed down a bit. Not until the end of Variation Ten, the March that blended both tunes together, did he stop, putting a pause on a rest. Then came that luscious transition, Variation 6, before the Minuet. What we don’t notice at first about Variation 6, thanks to Rakhmaninov’s extreme cunning, is that it’s changed into triple time for its modulation to D minor. The minuet is followed by another D minor variation, then the next two are in F major - same key signature of one flat - all this is in triple metre. As for the tunes, the Minuet puts a halting version of the Dies irae in the piano, while the orchestra plays the skeleton of Paganini as a bass - just like the first time we heard the plainsong in Variation 7. The next variations in this group stick with Paganini. Number 14, which always makes me think of the Wild West, inverts the first five notes but leaves the rest as they are. And Variation 15, the piano scherzo, is a variation of Variation 14. I want to make the point that the music is intricately cross-referenced. And remember on top of that, that we’ve heard Rakhmaninov himself conceiving it as a connected whole. Just one damn thing after another it most emphatically is NOT.

... not to mention his comment that Ousset is "16% slower than Rachmaninoff" in the "big tune". All very amusng, no doubt, if you like that sort of thing - but it's telling that you remember many of the details of the BaL, RT, but not the most important!

[Barbirollians]

Doesn’t that sum up the vast majority of his BALs ?

[Richard Tarleton]

All very amusng, no doubt, if you like that sort of thing - but it's telling that you remember many of the details of the BaL, RT, but not the most important!

Ousset, Ortiz, I remember it started with "O"

telling about me, or him? Or both? What does it tell you? By "most important", do you mean "who won"? My post was off the top of my head, entirely from memory and not entirely serious, but I'd have thought I did remember the most important thing about the BAL, namely his thoughts on its structure, which your lengthy quotes confirm????? Can't find an emoticon for <<harrumph>>.

[BBMmk2]

I like Askenay, LSO, Previn. I have others as well.

[Alain Maréchal]

He notes that at the time there are only three women who have recorded the work, Ousset (with CBSO/Rattle), Ilana Vered (LSO/Vonk) and ... he doesn't say.

Margrit Weber and Ferenc Fricsay perhaps. They treat the work seriously.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Doesn’t that sum up the vast majority of his BALs ?

telling about me, or him? Or both? What does it tell you? By "most important", do you mean "who won"? My post was off the top of my head, entirely from memory and not entirely serious, but I'd have thought I did remember the most important thing about the BAL, namely his thoughts on its structure, which your lengthy quotes confirm????? Can't find an emoticon for <<harrumph>>.

I've voiced my discontent with DON many times before on the Forum, so I gave the link to the whole transcript in order that anyone so interested can decide for themselves whether they find his approach more sympathetic than I do.

Yes, I agree with Barbs that this sums up the DON approach - and I was referring to DON, not RT when I remarked that it was "telling". Frequently, it's the "asides" of his reviews that stick in the mind rather than the "most important" point of which recording he is recommending. ("Most important", in that that's the purpose of the programme - to guide listeners to a recording to include in their collection. His comments on the structure of the work - whilst perfectly sound in a Discovering Music presentation - aren't really the most important thing to take away from a BaL - even if they make clear the criteria behind his final choice.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Margrit Weber and Ferenc Fricsay perhaps.

Almost certainly true - but he didn't say!