Sony has embarked on
a large reissue programme of Serkin’s
recordings. Some will be very familiar
through various incarnations over the
years whilst others derive from rather
more obscure corners – or if not obscure
then rather older sources (his Bach
disc, to be reviewed soon, includes
just the Aria from the Goldberg Variations
– all he recorded at the time - from
1976, the Prades Chromatic Fantasy and
Fugue (1950) and a Brandenburg Concerto
No.5 conducted by Casals from Marlboro
in 1964 amongst others – a disparate
bunch indeed).
No such considerations
concern this Brahms reissue and in a
sense there’s very little for me to
say about it except to welcome it back
to the fold. This classic Concerto recording
should never be out of the catalogue,
in the same way as the Curzon/Szell
recording should never be out of the
catalogue. Really it should be mandatory
listening for aspiring pianists. The
playing is superbly articulate, the
orchestral principles characterful,
the rhythm sprung with playful élan
(not least in the finale). It seems
to me the greatest of Serkin’s recordings
of it – preferable to the 1946 Reiner,
the earlier Szell (1952) and the Ormandy.
The remastering doesn’t seem to have
materially altered things – they may
even be the same tapes as before – but
the production, that seems to have been
released under the auspices of the French
branch, has added the Variations and
Fugue for piano in B flat on a theme
by Handel in this 1979 reading when
Serkin was seventy-six. It’s a work
of Brahms’ youth and Serkin relaxes
into it in a way he didn’t earlier in
his career. Fortunately Sony has individually
tracked each variation. He is especially
slow in variations 21 and 22 but his
final Fugue is leonine and decisive
enough even if elsewhere things are
just too becalmed and clement.
The variations are
noted as being a first CD release, which
if so is even more of an incentive to
acquire this august reissue.
Jonathan Woolf
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Rudolf Serkin (piano) 
