Portugheis was born
in Argentina of Russian and Rumanian
parents. Here, in the Concerto, he combines
finely sensitive playing with bravura.
The playing called for and delivered
is often unblushingly braw and this
is the predominant currency of the two
outer movements; is that a touch of
ragtime I hear in the finale? There
is some fairly unsubtle stuff in this
concerto but also a few reflective episodes.
The romantic second movement with the
flexatone solo (here discreetly balanced
and rather whoozy) is a sort of ‘Nights
in the Gardens of Armenia’. That movement
gels memorably towards the end at 7.48
onwards where it takes on an heroic,
bloodied but unbowed tone perhaps infused
with the suffering of the Armenian people.
The whole work is touched with that
sinuously exotic Middle Eastern accent
that so marks out Khachaturian’s mature
works.
The Concerto dates
from the year of Khachaturian’s marriage
to fellow composer Nina Makarova (1908-1976)
whose Symphony is on Russian Disc RD
CD 11 382. It was written with the benefit
of comments from Prokofiev. Interestingly
the ‘cries of pain’ in the first movement
recall vividly a work to be written
five years later: Shostakovich’s Symphony
No. 7. The dedicatee was Lev Oborin
and the work was given its UK premiere
in the heady atmosphere of joint Soviet-British
alliance at the old Queen’s Hall on
13 March 1940. The work became a signature
piece for the glamorous Moura Lympany
who gave that premiere in a concert
conducted by Alan Bush. The same concert
included the UK premiere of Shostakovich’s
Fifth Symphony. Rather like the Violin
Concerto completed in the same year
as the UK premiere the Piano Concerto
gained a cult following amongst the
Allied nations especially in the USA
where it was championed exhaustively
by Kapell, Levant and Rubinstein.
If you do not know
this concerto and you have a sweetly
romantic tooth with a taste for heroic
Russian Asiatica, this is worth tracking
down. It is by no means as insinuatingly
memorable as the Violin Concerto but
will provide much pleasure.
After so much ‘grandstanding’
it is good to have the contrast of the
knuckle-cracking Sonatina written two
years before the first of the three
Concerto-Rhapsodies (violin). The ideas
are pristinely laid out, crystalline
clear and with a very slight neo-classical
accent in the andante. The glimmeringly
exuberant Toccata, though from two decades
previously, links stylistically with
the outer movements of the Sonatina.
These works have been
recorded in a very lively - some might
say raging - acoustic. The bass drum
is captured with stunning grip by Brian
Culverhouse and his team. I always suspected
that the ‘colour mix’ was set to its
most ‘drenched’ position whenever Culverhouse
worked with Tjeknavorian - glorious
stuff!
The CD follows the
original LP format. It was in fact issued
in all three formats: LP: DCA589; cassette:
ZCDCA589 and CD: CDDCA58 in November
1987.
This CD now appears
repackaged for the bargain shelves which
helps compensate for the short playing
time. If you like Sanctuary’s highly
coloured, technicolour sound-signature
there’s no real reason to hesitate at
this bargain price.
Rob Barnett
Alberto
Portugheis (piano) 
