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The meeting of Alexis
Weissenberg and Peter Maag in Turin
in 1960 is the pretext for this preserved
radio broadcast performance of Brahms’
Second Concerto. Opening quite broadly
– at a slightly quicker pace than Gilels
and Jochum and Fischer-Furtwängler
– one almost immediately encounters
the kind of capricious italicisation
that makes one fear the worst. Weissenberg’s
concentration on immediately sculpting
diminuendi and indulging rubati threatens
to subvert the architecture of the concerto
before we are even underway. I hesitate
to say that even Horowitz and Toscanini
are preferable to this (because they
aren’t, or only if your blood is made
of ice) but there’s no denying the subjectivist
approach of the pianist. His attempt
indeed here at magisterial pianism is
horribly misconceived and the line fractures
badly, Weissenberg alternating between
would-be leonine playing and winsome
daintiness. Luckily, but too late for
me, things improve as the concerto develops.
I can’t help rid myself though of the
feeling that Weissenberg simply fails
to gauge its emotive temperature but
I liked the way he follows the cello
solo in the Andante in his flowing but
not unsympathetic way.
Maag’s fine, lean Academic
Festival Overture begins proceedings
but I’m afraid that in a crowded market
for historical performances, let alone
current contenders, this is strictly
for admirers of pianist and conductor.
Jonathan Woolf
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Alexis Weissenberg (piano) 
