Without a doubt Benno Moiseiwitsch was one of the truly great virtuosos of the century, and yet by temperament he never had the intensity that one associates with the playing of Rachmaninov, Hofmann, Horowitz or, on a lesser level, Barere. He was in many ways primarily a poet at the keyboard, wooing the listener by his extraordinary finesse in tonal shading and by an incomparable lyricism of phrasing.
Of course, he had also made discs of Rachmaninov's Second Concerto and Rhapsody before the Second World War (APR (CD) APR7004, 2/88), and by the mid-1950s when the above performances were recorded his technique was perhaps not quite what it had been. Nevertheless, these two stereo versions of the composer's most popular works with orchestra can be enjoyed for the pianist's autumnal approach to the music, gently unemphatic and of extraordinary subtlety in the suave wash of the accompaniments. The momentum of the music does suffer now and again—this is frequently Rignold's fault, as he concentrates too much on a film-music luscious string sound—but the leisurely pace of the slow movement from the concerto is superbly evocative. The Rhapsody is less of a success. True, there is plenty of deft passagework to delight piano buffs, but spiritually things sound a bit tired.
The solo Rachmaninov items demonstrate more clearly why Moiseiwitsch was admired as one of the great interpreters of this repertoire. The G major Prelude from the Op. 32 set features the most beautiful piano tone, but it is not over-sweet as is so often the case in this piece. The recording was made in 1956. The celebrated disc of the Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream dates from before the war and the piano sound is more distant, although it is better than in Lilacs, where there is a slightly 'cracked' distortion in the tone.
The 1938 recording of Beethoven's Emperor presents a performance that is transparently first-rate. The Legacy CD has preserved a fairly heavy surface noise, but the actual tone of the piano and the orchestral sound is excellent. Szell's handling of the score is wonderfully detailed, although the players aren't always up to his demands. It is at once evident that Moiseiwitsch was no mean Beethoven player. The combination of authority and sensitivity can be witnessed in the special way that he takes his time over phrasing. As with many Leschetizky pupils, the greatest attention is given to the balance between the hands and one hears a great deal from the left-hand part that is often glossed over. The long melodic lines of the slow movement are preserved with a miraculous control. So many pianists of today play the single-note passages as a series of disembodied sounds—here there is real line. Despite there being a slight loss of volume at times in the finale, the recorded sound does full justice to the performance.
The Liszt Hungarian Fantasy has slightly heavier surface noise and the orchestral sound is more crude. Moiseiwitsch ennobles the music with a great deal of panache and there is plenty of that magically delicate virtuosity to distract one from the rather obvious melodrama. Lambert's accompaniment is somewhat fitful. Godowsky's transcription of music from Die Fledermaus comes in a rather cut version and one suspects that Moiseiwitsch had some trouble in mastering all its intricacies of polyphony, although there is much that is impressively done.'