Michael Roll once jokingly remarked that Jorge Bolet did not really get going till he was 60, a reference to the fact that Roll’s own career followed a highly erratic course after he won the first Leeds International Piano Competition in 1963 at the age of 17. (Beginning on the night of his victory when he said that he would probably still be taking up his place at medical school.) Fifty-one this year, and an astonishing 34 years on from that Leeds victory, Roll re-emerges here to make what, by any standards, is an exceptionally fine recording of Beethoven’s B flat and C minor Piano Concertos.
I thought at first that the recording was too big and bright for the slighter B flat Concerto, even if it was pretty well ideal for the C minor Concerto. It is not a judgement that I have stuck with. True, we can hear a great deal in this typically big, bright, open Royal Philharmonic Collection recording, including the odd mistuning and the occasional more or less nugatory flaw in the orchestral ensemble, but the style and acumen of Howard Shelley’s shaping of the orchestral accompaniments and the boldness, wit and beauty of Roll’s playing carry all before them. Both concertos are vividly realized; the C minor (often elusive on record) has depth of insight too.
The bargain-price rival recordings listed above are much older, of course; the Arrau dates from 1958, though it still sounds very well on CD, the Rubinstein from the late 1960s. Both were well received at the time. Deryck Cooke thought Arrau’s account of the B flat Concerto “absolutely glorious” and the performance of the C minor Concerto has a vitality and maturity of insight of the kind to which Roll now evidently aspires. The Rubinstein wears less well, chillier and a touch precious. It is, however, the newsworthiness of the Roll – that and the excellence of the playing, stylishly accompanied – that gives it the more instant appeal.'