Khachaturian dedicated his Piano Concerto to Lev Oborin, who gave the first performance in 1937. His Violin Concerto was dedicated to David Oistrakh, who was the soloist at the work's premiere in 1940. These live Czech performances should therefore be important documents, but they aren't, simply because the recordings are too poor, even for this tolerant reviewer. Oistrakh's wonderful tone and technique manage to penetrate the murk, but the orchestral sound is blurred beyond redemption. Oborin's piano is given a clangy, insecure quality which is unpleasant to the ear, and the Czech Philharmonic sounds remote and hopelessly unclear.
In these circumstances it is impossible to evaluate the performances accurately. It sounds as if they were brilliant and authoritative, and it would have been particularly interesting to hear a clearer image of Mravinsky's work with a foreign orchestra. Oborin recorded the Piano Concerto in Russia under the composer's baton in 1956 (the performance was briefly available on Parlophone, 11/59); while Oistrakh set down two accounts of the Violin Concerto with the composer as conductor—a 1954 mono version made in London (now on CD from EMI), and a later Russian stereo one (reissued on HMV, 5/69). Seekers of authoritative Khachaturian performances should hunt for those old, deleted LPs, rather than face the trials of this new disc from Praga.'