Search - Sergey Rachmaninov, Howard Shelley :: The Complete Piano Music of Sergei Rachmaninov [Box Set]

Endless pleasure

Edwin J. Firmage | SLC, UT USA | 01/24/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Fortunately for my pocketbook, I listen to these recordings now mostly from my iTunes library or on my iPod. I say fortunately because I would have long since worn them out. Few of my hundreds of CDs have given me as much pleasure over many years as these. I don't doubt that one can find individual performances of many of these works that may top Shelley's, but for sheer, consistent quality in both interpretation and sound this set is hard to beat. While I have many Rachmaninov recordings by Russian performers, I find myself coming back to Shelley's by preference most of the time. Only in the case of Alexis Weissenberg's characteristically manic DG performance of the two piano sonatas do I find myself regularly drifting from Shelley.



Shelley's recordings of the piano concertos with Bryden Thomson and the Scottish National Orchestra are likewise solid and thoroughly enjoyable as are his three recordings, with various singers (notably Sergei Leiferkus), of the wonderful Rachmaninov Lieder."