This recording usefully completes Howard Shelley's richly comprehensive eight-disc series of Rachmaninov's piano music. Both the early and revised versions of the Second Sonata and the Melodie, Op. 3 are included, the second versions of the Humoresque (a piquant and sparkling improvement) and the Moment Musical No. 2, where the original is marginally clarified and refined. Shelley has also recorded the Piano Suites and the Symphonic Dances for two pianos for Hyperion and, most recently, the four piano concertos and the Paganini Rhapsody for Chandos.
These generous and epic undertakings are accomplished with rare pianistic skill and sympathy. Where others sound strenuous and hard-pressed Shelley is fluent and urbane, a true keyboard aristocrat free to concentrate on the elusive poetry that lies at the heart of so much fiery pianistic intricacy. His Flight of the bumble-bee is as nimble and precise as any on record (yes, even Rachmaninov's) and in the Bizet Minuet his rhythm is deliciously buoyant and supple. His sonority is crystalline and refined in Rachmaninov's wicked sophistication of Schubert's Wohin? and only an uncharacteristic hardening of tone at the end of the Bach Prelude mars an otherwise exemplary reading.
Horowitz and Cherkassky (RCA and Decca respectively) may suggest an altogether different level of pianistic cunning or idiosyncrasy in the Polka and, personally, I would not part for long with Kathryn Stott's 'blue' and audaciously despondent account of the Liebesleid on her Conifer recital. Moiseiwitsch's Lilacs and Mendelssohn Scherzo (EMI) are other legendary favourites. Yet all in all, Shelley is as stylish and subtly individual as in the earlier discs of his cycle. Zoltan Kocsis's arrangement of Vocalise with its final cascading surprise, provides the perfect encore and, once more, suggests Howard Shelley's distinctive eloquence and refinement, his musical marriage of sense and sensibility. The recordings are, for the most part, as satisfying as the performance.'