Chopin PCs: Blachacz/Semkow/Concertgebouw... Great!

[Nick Armstrong]

Really enjoying this new discovery....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chopin-Piano-Concertos-Rafal-Blechacz/dp/B002GJ3MQ2/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334408683&sr=8-1-spell

made thanks to Classic FM

On a late journey home from work, I didn't feel like arty chatter or Sudanese ear flutes, so switched from R3 to CFM. I happened on the start of the slow movement to Chopin's Second Piano Concerto...

For the first time, I was hooked. I've never really got the F minor concerto - the E minor First Concerto I've loved for ages and ages, but the Second has always seemed a bit too 'drooping violets' for me.

But this recording, with mesmerising playing from Blachacz and gorgeous support from the Concertgebouw strings - whispering and caressing - and winds, deftly and wisely conducted by Semkow (a new name to me, but obviously an old pro). Magic

I like this photograph of soloist and conductor, reminds me of those pics of Elgar and Menuhin. Young talent combining with experience to produce something special....



Anyone else know anything of Semkow's track record?

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

Anyone else know anything of Semkow's track record? [/COLOR]

I had no idea Semkow was still going! He recorded Borodin's Prince Igor with Boris Christoff back in the 1960s and there's a Boris Godunov with Martti Talvela on EMI. He did some Szymanowski too, IIRC.

[Chris Newman]

I did not know he was still going either, but a quick google reveals that apparently he works regularly with the St Louis and Pittsburg orchestras, as well as the main Polish bands. His Prince Igor and Boris and Janáček's Jenufa recordings were famous. Karol Szymanowski's pieces Jerzy Semkow recorded Symphonies no. 3 and 4. Polskie Nagrania recorded great interpretations of conducted by the artist symphonies of Schumann, Mozart, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Skriabin. He recorded Mozart's symphonies in Poland winning Golden Record, and Beethoven's choral works with St. Louis Symphony Orchestra recorded by VOX company. He was in charge of the Royal Danish Opera for same years.

I remember him in the seventies conducting Salome and Die Meistersinger at Covent Garden. Very good too.

[Barbirollians]

Did he not also conduct for Tamas Vasary's recordings of the Chopin Concertos - or at least one of them ?

[Nick Armstrong]

Did he not also conduct for Tamas Vasary's recordings of the Chopin Concertos - or at least one of them ?

Good heavens! Absolutely right - the first concerto. This was covered in this thread: http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...onic-Orchestra I had completely forgotten - and you'll see from my contributions there why that is particularly remiss!!

I've now listened more to the new disc. I am somewhat less enthusiastic about the performance of the first concerto in the new performance with Blachacz. It's pulled around too much I think. The partnership seems to me to work much better in the second concerto (or maybe it's because I know it less well).

It's interesting how that happens quite a lot where a composer has written two piano concertos... With Brahms, Shostakovich, Ravel (for example... though I can't think of any others) I have found that performers who nail one quite often don't get to the heart of the other. For instance Gilels/Jochum are awesome in Brahms PC#1 but I think miss the essence of #2... ... .Further through required...

[PJPJ]

I listened to this disc yesterday for the first time and enjoyed Blechacz's playing enormously in both concertos. However, the orchestra in the E minor sounds too large in numbers to me.