This invaluable issue brings together on two short CDs recitals given by Solomon in 1956 for RIAS (Berlin radio). This was the time of Solomon's greatest success when, as Bryan Crimp puts it in his excellent notes, he had acquired a Midas touch, at long last reaping the rewards his artistry deserved. The recordings are clean but airless, yet they do little to dim one's sense of Solomon's quality, his masterly but unobtrusive virtuosity, his unsullied honesty and musicianship. And, as an added bonus, the Bach Italian Concerto, Brahms Intermezzos and Rhapsody and Chopin's Second Scherzo are all new to the Solomon discography.
How typical is his robust pacy opening Allegro in the Bach, how impeccable his unfolding of the central Andante; a truly seamless aria in such hands. His rhythmic zest in the finale, too, is hard to resist and the entire performance has an energy and musical command that while wholly individual often reminded me of the magisterial ease and authority of Dinu Lipatti, another great and tragically ill-fated pianist.
In Beethoven Solomon is, not surprisingly, no less remarkable. By 1956 he had modified his celebrated slow tempo for the first movement of Op. 27 No. 2, yet the playing remains sculpted and marmoreal, a statement mixing abstraction and elegy and wholly devoid of impressionism or 'moonlit' overtones. And although Op. 2 No. 3 is without, say, the magical chiaroscuro wit and elegance of Kempff or the salty con brio of Schnabel, it is superbly patrician. The absence of all false solemnity and, particularly in the finale, the clarity and precision, tell their own awe-inspiring tale. Only Michelangeli excels Solomon in aristocratic perfection here
Solomon's Brahms is no less lucid and classic, though his B minor Rhapsody has a truly agitato sweep and propulsion. What I occasionally missed was the sort of sotto voce that is second nature to artists such as Murray Perahia or Radu Lupu in this music (an impression admittedly encouraged by close miking). Here Solomon's poise and sangfroid are only just on the right side of detachment. The same might be said of his Chopin Fantasie, with its unexpected change of tempo for the second idea and his ultra-cool way with the central B major oasis of calm. Solomon was hardly a pianist to wear his heart on his sleeve, and although there have been other, more richly idiosyncratic Fantasies on record, there are few more masterly or refined.
Finally criticism falls silent when you listen to Solomon in the B flat minor Nocturne, where his magically 'contained' eloquence (particularly in the central legato and cantabile octave flow) recreates a pearl beyond price. Here, heart and mind work in faultless harmony and alliance.'