Schumann; Dvorak Piano Concertos
Two very fine accounts of the Dvor¨¢k Concerto but which is the one to buy?
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Antonín Dvořák
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: Bridge
Magazine Review Date: 2/2010
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: BRIDGE9309
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra |
Antonín Dvořák, Composer
Antonín Dvořák, Composer Justin Brown, Conductor Odense Symphony Orchestra Vassily Primakov, Piano |
Poetic tone pictures, Movement: Nocturnal route |
Antonín Dvořák, Composer
Antonín Dvořák, Composer Vassily Primakov, Piano |
Poetic tone pictures, Movement: At the old castle |
Antonín Dvořák, Composer
Antonín Dvořák, Composer Vassily Primakov, Piano |
Poetic tone pictures, Movement: Reverie |
Antonín Dvořák, Composer
Antonín Dvořák, Composer Vassily Primakov, Piano |
Poetic tone pictures, Movement: Goblins' dance |
Antonín Dvořák, Composer
Antonín Dvořák, Composer Vassily Primakov, Piano |
Poetic tone pictures, Movement: By the tumulus |
Antonín Dvořák, Composer
Antonín Dvořák, Composer Vassily Primakov, Piano |
Label: Pentatone
Magazine Review Date: 2/2010
Media Format: Super Audio CD
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
Stereo
Catalogue Number: PTC5186333
Author: Bryce Morrison
Both pianists are clearly in love with music that releases its secrets slowly, the truth lying somewhere between Primakov’s delicacy and brilliance and Helmchen’s greater introspection. Both achieve their goal in making even the most workaday passages somehow take wing. And elsewhere their warmth is almost palpable in, for example, the finale’s second subject contrast to the prevailing folk-dance element or in the central Andante’s Chopinesque tracery. Echoes of Beethoven, Brahms and (amusingly) Liszt’s Grand Chromatic Galop at the close of the Andante are resolved where Dvorák struggles to find an identity which achieved its fullest glory in the later Cello Concerto.
Choice between these two recordings will perhaps depend on their couplings, a perhaps overly respectable way with the Schumann Piano Concerto from Helmchen and a magical and scintillating realisation of Dvorák’s Poetic Tone-Pictures by Primakov. Both pianists are finely partnered and recorded, but personally I would go for Primakov, not forgetting Richter’s own superb performance on EMI’s Great Recordings of the Century label (9/77R).
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