Search - Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Claudio Abbado, London Symphony Orchestra :: Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1

Yowza! A big, full-bodied reading of an old warhorse

John Grabowski | USA | 01/13/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I put off buying this for a long time because, frankly, this isn't my favorite concerto, and I'm also rather sick of warhorses, period. It's a testament to Pogo's brilliance that he can make me hear a warhorse all over again for the first time, but he worked the same magic with his stunning recording of the Chopin "Funeral March" sonata, another CD I recommend highly. Pogo seems to be that rare artist, someone who can imagine something anew and convince you that this is the way to go. He's certainly convinced Abbado. The stentorian introduction here will stand your hair on end, no matter how many times you've already heard it. And little finesses, small attentions to detail, will convince you that there is still gold to be mined in overly-familiar repertoire pieces. Pogo and Abbado are clearly having a blast finding new nuggets in the nooks and crannies of this concerto.



And maybe it's not all that familiar anyway, no matter how many times we've heard it. Because you have to admit that, after the all-too-familiar intro, there's a lot of brave material here. Imagine how avant-garde this must have sounded in 1875! The structure is extremely odd--it's really somewhere between a concerto and a fantasy. The role of the piano is sometimes that of conspirator and sometimes that of foe. Anyone who thinks of Tchaikovsky as a "bourgeois" composer should listen to this work more carefully.



Pogo and Abbado do. Pogorelich, who rose to fame when Martha Argerich walked off a jury competition in which he was *not* awarded first place, bangs off the opening octaves as cleanly as glass. And in the secondary theme of the first movement, the delicate thing that appears first in the winds, he plays the counterpoint with unbelievable clarity, yet never without feeling or coldly. Or listen to the little cadenza just before the main theme returns to recap the second movement. Pogo walks on air. Just amazing! The poster below me who says this performance is unfelt has got to be kidding! You can tell when Abbado is enjoying himself in concertos--it shows in his accompaniments. Here he is electrifying, and DG's engineers capture it all with great big bold sound that will make your rafters rattle and annoy--or delight--your neighbors.



Some might carp that this disc is a little skimpy with no filler. Well, all Pogo discs are skimpy. He doesn't record often, but when he does it's an event, so savor it and go for quality over quantity. That hunk of filet Mignon on the menu for $40 is skimpy too--but I'll take it over a McDonald's Quadruple Cheeseburger any day."

Light and brilliant--as ever, Pogorelich goes his own way

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 06/11/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The hallmark of Pogorelich's playing here is the delicacy and poettry he achieves in music that we've all heard a hundred times over. To say that someone has found a way to make the Tchaikovsky First sound new happens often enough, but here it's true. The best versions on disc (Horowitz, Richter, Gilels) are a grand show for the soloist, as are Argerich's several versions, none of then Russian in feeling but certainly a knockout.



Pogorelich finds his own way by, first of all, playing the Andante as if it were Chopin, reaching inward for phrasing and nuance we haven't heard before. This is a refreshing approach, yet when it comes to fireworks, he unleashes thunderous power. In a sense the soloist isn't even half the sotry, however, because we also get an unusually beautiful orchestral reading from Abbado and the LSO, which is captured in world-class sonics. The soundstage is open and spacious, the piano sounds utterly real, and the dynamic impact is thrilling. Why else would DG have devoted an entire CD to a 37 min. work?



In terms of these combined elements, I would rate this CD high on my list of the very best."