Another Rachmaninoff Opus 18 Recording?

from the Amazon.com Web page for the recording being discussed

This past fall Warner Classics released its latest recording of the piano music of Sergei Rachmaninoff featuring a performance of his Opus 18 (second) piano concerto in C minor. The soloist is South Korean pianist Dong-Hyek Lim, performing with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alexander Vedernikov. The remainder of the album is devoted to Rachmaninoff’s own two-piano arrangement of his Opus 45 “Symphony Dances,” which Lim performs with Martha Argerich.

My choice of priorities in that preceding paragraph are the result of my having written a previous account of a Warner Classics album of Rachmaninoff’s piano music. That article was written in November of 2016; and, in many respects, its observations about Opus 18 ring as true today as they did over three years ago, even though the earlier article was about an entirely different pianist with an entirely different background. Most relevant is the following passage from that article:

Nevertheless, I should say in all fairness that my satisfaction with Rachmaninoff performances still tends to outweigh my feelings about recordings. The fact is that Rachmaninoff could command a impressive rhetorical toolbox of nuances and subtleties; but the intricacies of such tool-work tend, more often than not, to get pushed into an almost inaudible background in the making of recordings intended to appeal to listeners only interested in the grandest of gestures. Once the repertoire departs from chamber music and songs, it is difficult to find recording projects interested in anything other than a “wow-factor.”

I believe I can say with some confidence that, since I wrote that passage, I have yet to encounter a recording of Opus 18 that comes anywhere near to getting me to sit up and listen the way any of the recent performances of this concerto that I have experienced have done. This is probably more a reflection on studio practices than it is on Lim. Furthermore, to be fair, I can grant without difficulty that, on a global scale, there are not that many locations where music lovers have frequent opportunities to hear this concerto (or any other composition) in a concert performance. Thus, recordings definitely have value; but I appreciate that there is a growing trend of basing recordings on performances taking place before an audience, rather than in the sterility of a recording studio. I appreciate the value of that trend, and every now and then to let loose a cheer for it.

The point is that, if this recording left me jaded, it probably has nothing to do with the performers and everything to do with the process. Most likely the same can be said of the approach to Opus 45. I still remember my first serious encounter with a two-piano performance in the early Seventies; and, believe me, the visuals were as absorbing as the audibles without ever detracting attention from the music itself. However, when such a performance is subjected to recording technology, unless one has a relatively intimate knowledge of the score itself, the result is likely to sound like a jumble of notes spanning a wide variety of registers.

That said, the note in the booklet by Scott Davie offers an interesting sidebar about Opus 45. The original score was written in 1940 when Rachmaninoff was living in an estate overlooking Long Island Sound. It was first performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormandy, on January 3, 1941. The two-piano version was first performed in August of 1942 at a private party in Beverly Hills. Rachmaninoff himself played one part with Vladimir Horowitz played the other.

Davie takes RCA to task for not recording this partnership. However, Rachmaninoff had moved to California for health reasons. (The author of his Wikipedia page claims he had been “suffering from sclerosis, lumbago, neuralgia, high blood pressure, and headaches.”) One can appreciate Rachmaninoff accepting an invitation to perform at a Beverly Hills party, but it is hard to imagine that he would have been up to the strain of studio recording sessions. When it comes to valuable recordings, we should appreciate what RCA did provide, rather than grouse about what they didn’t!