The discrepancy in the number of CDs contained in these two sets of the purportedly 'complete' music for solo piano is explained by the fact that the Hyperion, in addition to presenting all that is on the Sony, includes also the early version of the Second Sonata, the three Nocturnes from 1887/8, as well as various other minor early pieces. Laredo's version, on only five CDs, never offers less than 70 minutes per disc, and although one might be tempted to think that she must play faster than Shelley, in reality their tempos by-and-large are almost identical.
The original piano works span some 45 years of the composer's life. The earliest pieces here, the Nocturnes mentioned above, strangely owe allegiance neither to Field nor Chopin, but are very much in the mid-to-late nineteenth-century Russian salon style. The Third, in C minor, has nothing whatever to do with its title. Nicely written too, but still uncharacteristic, are four pieces from 1888, which amply demonstrate that from his early teens the composer had something individual to say. The Melodie in E (not to be confused with that from Op. 3) is memorable for its hypnotic use of piano tone. Hyperion's recording quality can be heard at its very best here; there is real bloom and colour.
Written shortly after his First Piano Concerto in the early 1890s, the Morceaux de fantaisie, Op. 3 bring us to familiar Rachmaninov. The ubiquitous Prelude in C sharp minor is the second number, and here, rather to my surprise, I preferred Laredo's straightforward reading. Shelley tries to do too much with it; he is more effective in the Serenade with its Spanish overtones. Comparing his performance of the Morceaux de salon, Op. 10 with Laredo's, I found that Shelley's overall sense of scale carried far greater conviction. Also, partly due to the better-judged recording, individual notes do not obtrude as they tend to in the over-full and often reverberant Sony recording.
Generally Laredo is served with better sound quality for the Moments musicaux, Op. 16. Here her approach is rather structured and less improvisatory than Shelley's. In the E flat minor, for instance, one feels that it is he who is able to master Rachmaninov's swirling accompaniments the more idiomatically. Laredo certainly has a very secure technique, but, lacking in imagination, she does not respond to nor exploit details in the score. The seldom-heard Variations on a Theme of Chopin (the theme is the Prelude in C minor from Op. 28) is a case in point. Shelley succeeds in bringing the notes to life in a way that eludes the American pianist. For instance, in Variation No. 15, it is he who has the fingers to get around the fleet scherzando writing, leaving his colleague sounding bland and over-cautious.
The first set of Preludes served to strengthen my impressions of the merits of each pianist. This is, of course, far more mainstream repertoire and, as such, easier to assess. To begin with, there is not any real temperamental involvement in Laredo's handling of the music. In the warmly expressive D major Prelude, though her phrasing is 'generous', it does not succeed in expressing very much. Shelley, on the other hand, lends the piece a strong Brahmsian feel and it thus emerges as better focused, especially since the voices are so subtly separated. He manages to transform the C minor from a disciplined study (Laredo) into a restless mood picture.
Moving on to the First Sonata, though the American is able to play the Mephistophelian finale with an uncompromising technical strength, I was not sure how well she really knew the piece. With Shelley the first movement achieves a symphonic stature. This is a piece that is conventionally dismissed as being unwieldy; he convinces one otherwise and allows it to be seen in conjunction more with the composer's orchestral writing.
Within a couple of years Rachmaninov was at the height of his powers and shortly after the Third Concerto he wrote the Op. 32 Preludes. I felt that neither artist produced entirely consistent results here. Shelley is able to conjure up an exquisite, shimmering moonlit scene for the G major, but he is not as monumentally impressive as Laredo in the B minor. However, with him it is always the music that dictates the course of the interpretation, whereas the American tends to shape it according to her predetermined ideas of style. In the two sets of Etudes-tableaux Shelley is entirely the front runner, leaving Laredo to sound unprepared and flustered in one or two numbers, and not much more than dutiful in the rest.
The English pianist is the outright winner too in the Second Sonata. He draws together the disparate elements of the finale with terrific mastery and shows himself entirely the equal of the 'Horowitz clones' in matters of technique. Laredo is less than secure at times and nowhere near so imaginative. In the Corelli Variations she may convey greater breadth, but here neither pianist is quite in tune with the scope of the work. Shelley is outstanding in the transcriptions, if a little straight-faced.
This Hyperion set is a significant testament to Howard Shelley's artistry. Pianistically impeccable, he understands what Rachmaninov was about. The recorded sound here is never less than serviceable; sometimes excellent. In contrast, Laredo, workmanlike though she is, suffers from a rather boomy piano tone.'