Ogawa’s playing is effortlessly fluent, limpidly clear
in its delineation of Rachmaninov’s multi-tiered textures,
bold and forceful where necessary while leaving an abiding impression
of gentle poetry, naturally musical and free-flowing in her
control of tempi and rubato.
I could leave it that. It all depends on what you expect from
these concertos. If you believe that Rachmaninov is a “perfect”
composer whose work, like Mozart’s or Beethoven’s,
is best represented by the most accurate and stylistic realization
of the score as possible, then this is what you get. You might
feel, though, that Rachmaninov’s concertos are more in
the line of Anton Rubinstein’s, D’Albert’s,
Scharwenka’s et al, pianist-composers’ vehicles
for their own artistry, empty vessels requiring the performer’s
personal input to bring them to life. Maybe the supreme examples
of their kind, but of their kind nonetheless. In that case you
will miss something you will find in Rachmaninov himself, Moiseiwitsch
in the Rhapsody and, signally and uniquely, Michelangeli in
Concerto 4. This latter provides, without distortion of the
musical line, an intense(self-)dramatization of every moment,
once-heard never forgotten and hard to live without. The solo
flourish leading to the final grand statement of the big theme
at the end of the finale, and the peroration itself, are the
sort of events that are likely to seem unduly plain-sailing
in Ogawa’s agreeable hands. The reverse side of the coin
is that, if you find Rachmaninov’s neuroses, his doleful
introspection and his hysterical climaxes objectionable, Ogawa
may provide a Rachmaninov you can relate to. Her 18th
variation in the Rhapsody is typically not a Hollywood blockbuster,
though there is genuine warmth of feeling behind it. But I think
Moiseiwitsch was better at showing how to strip it of vulgarity
while preserving the grease-paint.
Ogawa has been hailed by many - including myself, repeatedly
on MusicWeb International - as one of today’s foremost
Debussy interpreters. I also thought she got all there was to
get out of Tcherepnin’s concertos. Rachmaninov seems to
require something she cannot completely supply. But here’s
a conundrum. Does this disc, released in 2012, represent the
height of Ogawa’s achievement today? Look at the dates.
Shortly on the heels of her 1997 coupling of Rachmaninov’s
2nd and 3rd concertos, warmly but not
gushingly received, she completed the cycle and there it’s
been sitting, dormant, for over a decade. Her Debussy cycle,
too, was completed by a 5th volume actually recorded
before the 1st. In this case BIS explained that,
since volume 5 contained Debussy’s early works, it had
been decided to hold it while she recorded the major cycles
of Preludes, Images etc. In the present case, I just don’t
see what they are playing at. If there were doubts about this
disc 11 years ago, why has it surfaced now? Why not give us
her latest thoughts on the concertos, which for all I know may
answer my reservations expressed above? It is difficult not
to wonder if something has not gone badly wrong and Ogawa today
for some reason could not match, let alone surpass, these performances,
and knows it. Yet her career continues and her Debussy cycle
was released in a box containing a newly recorded performance
of the Fantaisie that hardly suggests declining powers. All
very puzzling. One begins to wonder how many more unreleased
Ogawa performances lie in the BIS vaults. Maybe she has already
re-recorded the works here, for release around 2030.
Recording is excellent and orchestral support is reliable, but
this disc raises questions that will only be answered by new
recordings from the artist.
Christopher Howell
Masterwork Index: Rachmaninov
Piano concertos & Paganini variations
Noriko Ogawa (piano) 