Search - Rachmaninoff :: Rachmaninoff In Hollywood - Piano Concerto No. 3 (complete) with Ashkenazy & Ormandy, Rhapsody on a theme from Paganini; excerpts from Piano Concerto No. 2, Symphonic Dances, and Vespers

The Third

W. Meurer | Houston | 02/17/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I got this recording for one reason. The Third. If you have never heard the Ashkenazy/Ormandy recording of the Third, you must get this CD."

A Hollywood Ending? No, it's just Rachmaninoff Very Well Do

Lloyd Paguia Arriola | New York, NY United States | 04/29/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Well, this is yet another attmept to cash in on a film that was about a pianist who shall remain nameless here. But though "Shine" was fun filmmaking, and well-acted (especially by the star Geoffrey Rush) the pianist here is no David Helfgott. In the Rachmaninoff 3rd Concerto we have the most expansive and loving reading imaginable from Vladimir Ashkenazy, an extraordinary strongman of the piano.



At over forty-six minutes, this is only a few seconds faster than the Alexis Weissenberg/Bernstein version. The big difference here is though Weissenberg and Bernstein clearly love and play the piece well, the trump card here is the glorious Philadelphia Orchestra, under its venerable longtime music director Eugene Ormandy. How rich and lush the strings sound here! And yet nothing is mealy and overripe, just full to the point of bursting, a rare achievement. Rachmaninoff may have played his music faster than this, but his aristocratic bearing is simply different from the extravagant expansiveness of this performance, which is capped off by a tremendous reading of the larger ossia cadenza in the first movement.



I can't vouch for the other items on the disc--can't say I listened too carefully to the other things on it! I am simply amazed at Ashkenazy's pianistic powers of prestidigitation and persuasiveness. (OK, no more alliteration, alright?) This is one of my favorite versions, next to Gavrilov with Muti, Weissenberg with Pretre and later with Bernstein, Berman/Bernstein (on the big Bernstein box from the New York Philharmonic), and a few private versions of the work that I have. If RCA is smart, they'll keep this disc in print."