John Lill first performed Rachmaninov's Third Concerto when he was 18. Now, at 50, he returns to this daunting masterpiece, commencing for Nimbus a complete cycle of the concertos, the Paganini Rhapsody and some substantial fillers. Few pianists can have argued their case for Rachmaninov's strength and nobility more gravely or imperiously. Pyrotechnical whirlwinds, easy glamour and neurosis he leaves to others, doggedly refusing all the more obvious or spine-tingling rewards.
Finely and seriously partnered by Tadaaki Otaka and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, he commences in a truly elegiac and pensive mood and just when you have started to question his reserve he storms the first-movement cadenza (very suitably, in his case, the larger of the two in the work) with unlimited tonal resource and disdain for difficulty. Even the most intricate passages are articulated with an ideal clarity (how rarely one hears all the notes!); and if the central scherzando of the ''Intermezzo'' variation has sounded more dazzling from some players, Lill is arguably more musical and well-proportioned. There is no whipping-top frenzy either in the final pages, where the sense of mounting excitement is all the more thrilling for being so precisely controlled.
The same attributes colour the sonata (these days in danger of over-familiarity, particularly on the competition circuit), with a rock-steady command of even the most inflammatory climaxes. Lill's spaciousness is particularly telling at the close of the first movement and, once again, how unusual to hear every strand of Rachmaninov's polyphony given with such even-handed strength.
There are, of course, more overtly attractive recordings of both works (the 1951 Horowitz and the 1955 Gilels in the concerto; and the 1960 Cliburn sonata—only available on cassette), but even those for whom sober-minded Rachmaninov is anathema may find themselves wondering at such unswerving musical integrity. Lill's performance of the sonata, in particular, is of a magnificent, truly epic stature. The recordings, made in Nimbus's new Concert Hall, are a vast improvement on their earlier productions.'