《克莱本：拉赫玛尼诺夫第三钢琴协奏曲》

专辑介绍：Perhaps Van Cliburn is the sort of artist who needs the stimulus of a live audience as he ha~ in his Carnegie Hall recording of , No.3, and doesn't I'espone! we ll to studio conditions . Try Ogdon (Hl\IV) , J a nis (Mt'rcury) or Richter (DGG )- I would say in that ord er-if you want a re a lly deeply satisfying account of this concerto. . I am afraid that this latest recordiug by Van Cliburn cannut be recommended. T.H.

The only complimentary thing I can say about Van Cliburn's performance is that I have never heard any pianist play all the notes so cleanly and clearly . Unfortunately that doesn't make a fine interpretation of a romantic concerto. The pla ying is positively clinical in its cold precision. I t is also far too loud when it should be soft (though no doubt the recording doesn't h.. lp) and the dynamic ra nge in the first movement, for instance, is about from rrif to if. Van Cliburn's playing of the opening of the slow movement doesn't dream; it is clear and precise, as one might play the first Prelude of the "48" in slow tempo . After his successful recording of Rachmaninov's 3rd Piano Concerto it is strange to find him playing so unromantically here. The first movement's second subject, to name only one instance, is too clean ami too percussive, with the result that it remains completely prosaic.

This is one of the worst concerto balances that I can remember hearing. The piano is right close up and the bits of orchestral scoring that are comple{ely inaudible, together with those of which one just catches stray fragments, add up to a list of ludicrous length, a list far too long for me to detail here. Why on earth did Rachmaninov trouble to write all that woodwind stuff down if he didn't intend i t to be heard? In this recorded effort even the violins, with a theme marked mf, are practically inaudible against piano decoration (and merely decoration) marked p. And so on and so on. I t is also mean of RCA-Victor to give us such short measure on the second side--Qnly the concerto's fin a le; practically every other recommended version gives us a handful of Preludes as well. But that is a minor complaint when set against the ruin done to Rachmaninov's music by the balance.