Search - Johannes Brahms, Frederic Chopin, Maurice Ravel :: The New York Recitals, Vol. 1

Mordecai Shehori has won an enthusiastic following for his annual New York concerts, and it's easy to see why from this broadcast recording of a 1977 Metropolitan Museum of Art concert. The program reflects Shehori's strengths as a romantic pianist--he's a virtuoso who does justice to the stormy passages in each work but really shines in the contemplative, poetic ones. Shehori's Brahms sonata is full of youthful abandon, and throughout the entire program he plays with emotional largess. The Chopin works are especially congenial, and he masters the Ravel's fearsome technical demands while preserving the narrative sense of the piece. Recorded competition in all of these works is keen, but Shehori offers top-level playing with the added attraction of the spontaneity and risk-taking of a live concert. --Dan Davis