If your main priorities in Tchaikovsky concertos are visceral excitement, barnstorming virtuosity and nifty tempos, then this is probably not the set for you. Tempos here are generally broad, and although there is no lack of pianistic thunder – Victoria Postnikova commands a handsome tone – the interpretative accent falls securely beneath the music’s surface. The First Concerto is revealing in the sense that dialogue between soloist and orchestra is particularly sensitive; listen, for example, to the delicately voiced woodwinds at 6'38'' (in the first movement), to Postnikova’s subsequent response and, most especially, to the pianist’s free yet nimble handling of the second movement’s treacherous valse-prestissimo (4'05''). Note, too, how she caresses the arpeggiated phrases that close the movement (from, say, 7'21'') or her coltish but lilting approach to the finale. As Tchaikovsky Firsts go, this is among the most searching, the most personal and certainly the most individual that I know, although I can already hear a loud opposition: “too slow, too mannered, too indulgent, too soft-grained, orchestrally”.
I have already addressed both the Second and Third Concertos while reviewing Barry Douglas’s RCA set under Leonard Slatkin (6/94). Again, Postnikova plumbs the depths. Her handling of Tchaikovsky’s epic cadenzas is second to none – starting at 1'55'' into the Second Concerto’s first movement, then (most notably) between 13'26'' and 19'13'', where the solo writing is so massive in scale that you temporarily forget the mute presence of an orchestra. Rozhdestvensky views Tchaikovsky’s orchestral architecture with a fine sense of perspective, and never more so than at 4'53'' into the Third Concerto and the tense decrescendo thereafter. This is real interpretation and presents a powerful case for a much maligned work (torso though it is). True, there is still room for critical controversy (the Second Concerto’s first movement is hardly Allegro brillante), but Postnikova and Rozhdestvensky have so much to say about the music that I cannot imagine many open-minded listeners failing to respond. The most recent mid-price rival is on EMI’s Forte label and reinstates the 1972 Gilels/New Philharmonia/Maazel cycle – a pianistically exciting survey (No. 1 is especially hot-headed), but a trifle hit-or-miss and with a truncated version of No. 2.
EMI add Bartok and Prokofiev concertos with Richter, whereas Decca offer a poised and elegantly phrased account of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, where a rather edgy-sounding Kyung-Wha Chung is offered blandly ‘regular’ support by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Charles Dutoit. Not a world-beater by any means – and no match for the piano concerto performances, certainly not in terms of insight – but a sensible makeweight, very well recorded. As indeed is the rest of the set, although the Vienna Symphony strings will strike some as rather thin in tone. An altogether riveting reissue and a genuine bargain as well.'