Tchaikovsky: PC1 - Richter/Karajan - WSO

[Guest]

I picked this up today in a charity shop - the most recent DG Originals version, with the universally acclaimed Rachmaninov PC2 coupling.

The Penguin Guide has some harsh words for Richter and Karajan's Tchaikovsky - very rare for that source to be so scathing about a Karajan performance.

Having heard it, I'm impressed: the booklet makes an assertion that they're trying to make Tchaikovsky sound like Schumann (with which I'd disagree). But I think their interpretation - more clear-eyed and less exuberant than many - works.

What does everyone else think?

[Barbirollians]

I have never quite understood the sniffiness about this recording . It is the antithesis of the idea that for a Tchaikovsky 1 to work it needs to be barnstorming - true many of the barnstormers are thrilling but some aren't and are just noisy .

Richter is splendid in my view .

The coupling of course lives up to every plaudit thrown at it !!!

[silvestrione]

Richter himself is on record as saying he did not like it...Karajan let him down at certain moments over what they had agreed, etc. But I think if you just listen, it is, as said above, just splendid, not showy but musical and poetic.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Richter himself is on record as saying he did not like it...Karajan let him down at certain moments over what they had agreed, etc. But I think if you just listen, it is, as said above, just splendid, not showy but musical and poetic.

As can be heard here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_123898&feature=iv&src_vid=gYByYV82h6I&v=y4-OSg_oU_o

(Incidentally, "on record" where, silvestrione? The words "Lebrecht" and "Norman" aren't involved, by any chance?)

[silvestrione]

As can be heard here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_123898&feature=iv&src_vid=gYByYV82h6I&v=y4-OSg_oU_o

(Incidentally, "on record" where, silvestrione? The words "Lebrecht" and "Norman" aren't involved, by any chance?)

P. 121, in his 'Silhouettes', printed in Monsaingeon's excellent book on Richter. Looking at it again, it's basically just a complaint about one mistake in the slow movement, down to Karajan's 'pigheadedness'! Richter was of course a great admirer of Karajan. See the same page.

(I never have anything to do with said 'Lebrecht' )

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

P. 121, in his 'Silhouettes', printed in Monsaingeon's excellent book on Richter. Looking at it again, it's basically just a complaint about one mistake in the slow movement, down to Karajan's 'pigheadedness'! Richter was of course a great admirer of Karajan. See the same page.

(I never have anything to do with said 'Lebrecht' )