Search - Beethoven, Hess, BBC Sym Orch :: Piano Concertos 2 & 5

Hess, a legend of 20th-century piano, recorded relatively little--and you will understand why--listening to a fascinating interview segment in which she tells how much she hates recordings and all machines. These live performances thus become unusually valuable. Her approach to the "Emperor" has no eccentricities or unusual elements; it's just plain straight-ahead music making, sensible and completely satisfying. Sir Malcolm Sargent, an old hand at Beethoven concertos (he recorded them with Schnabel in the 1930s) is a fine collaborator; the orchestra plays well, and the 1957 mono sound does its job. The Second Concerto, an easier interpretive task, is somewhat less successful; the recording, from 1960, is less clear than the "Emperor," and Hess sounds flustered in the finale, even briefly missing an entrance. But the "Emperor" is definitely worth the price of the disc for pianophiles. --Leslie Gerber