Here, miraculously
preserved from the murk of early post-war
Soviet history by courtesy of the Ginzburg
family archives, and in better sound
than one would have dared to hope, is
a complete concert, with encores, by
one of the greatest of all romantic
pianists.
And it is with the
encores that I would like to start,
for they reveal much about his art.
The opening bars of "Ständchen"
are curiously dry, and faster than what
is to follow, but when the melody enters
we are bathed in a world of luminous
warmth. I would frown upon a singer
and pianist who applied such agogic
freedom to the Schubert original but,
if questionable as Schubert, this is
wonderful Liszt. Most remarkable of
all is the last verse where the theme
is echoed in little counter-phrases;
the dialogue between the warmly sung
melody (as if played on massed cellos),
the gently lapping accompaniment and
the delicate counter-phrases (as if
on a flute) is extraordinary and it
is here, rather than in mind-boggling
virtuosity, that we find the essence
of golden-age pianism. There are plenty
of young bloods and blades around today
who can play as fast as Ginzburg, but
this sort of "keyboard orchestration"
proves harder to recapture.
And so it is with "La
campanella"; you will certainly
be amazed at the notes-per-second in
the later stages, and the final burn-up
is breathtaking, but I hope you will
notice how earlier on you are surrounded
by bells, each with its different timbre,
each with its own part in the texture.
You’ll have to go back to Ignaz Friedmann
for something matching this. And then
we have Ginzburg’s own Rossini Fantasia,
full of impish wit and devil-may-care
exuberance. These three pieces would
alone suffice to place Ginzburg among
the greats; the irresistible conclusion
is that, if he had moved to the West
and lived somewhat longer, he would
have given Horowitz quite a run for
his money.
Mention of Friedmann
is a reminder that, with so many of
these golden-age pianists, we know them
only in shorter works and, when something
larger has been preserved, doubts arise
as to their ability to realise larger
structures. Liszt concertos are very
different beasts from those of Beethoven
or Brahms, but insofar as they can be
taken as evidence, Ginzburg seems to
have had an innate sense of architecture.
He enters fully into each mood – from
the diabolically malevolent to the impishly
humorous and then to the radiantly poetic
– yet each moment takes its place in
the larger scheme. Notice how the poetic
reveries near the end of no.2 appear
as a genuine parenthesis and not mere
directionless meandering. He is helped
by the very positive support of Nikolai
Anosov, who obtains some whiplash attacks
and a tension that seems positively
Mravinskian, though his orchestra is
not up to Leningrad standards. There
is a very Russian feeling to his work
– I couldn’t help thinking of Mussorgsky’s
unhatched chicks during the scherzo
of no.1. Interpretatively and pianistically
these performances stand at the pinnacle
of the discography of the Liszt concertos,
though on account of their sound they
will remain confined to specialist collectors
– for the general public there is jaw-dropping
greatness a-plenty in the versions by
Ginzburg’s younger compatriot Richter
(with Kondrashin), far better recorded.
All the same, if you
are a fan of great pianism you cannot
afford to miss this issue.
Christopher Howell
see also review
by Jonathan Woolf
Grigory Ginzburg (piano) 
