MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

CD REVIEW


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

 


 

Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 83 (1881) [46:48]
César FRANCK (1822-1890)

Les Djinns (1844) [11:59]
Franz LISZT (1811-1886)

Concerto Pathétique in E minor (1886) [20:49]
Joshua Pierce (piano);
Bohuslav Martinů
Philharmonic Orchestra/Kirk Trevor.
rec. 28-29 May, 10-11 December 1999, Concert Hall of BMF/Zlin, Czech Republic.
MSR CLASSICS MS1148 [79.37]



 

I’ve heard Joshua Pierce’s recording of the First Concerto and it seems to me somewhat more successful than this performance of the Second. Pierce is an athletic and commanding player and despite some moments to the contrary is not an exponent of the Bang and Crash school in Brahms. But the first disappointment is that he has been accorded the kind of recorded balance more befitting one of the Titans of the 1950s. Think of the kind of thing upon which Rubinstein insisted and indeed was insisting well into the 1970s and you’ll have some idea of how over-prominent is the piano. It comes at the cost of obscuring and clouding some significant orchestral detail – notably some counter-themes that should be heard but are frustratingly deficient in the balance. And in the first movement subsidiary piano material is promoted at the expense of the orchestral.

Pierce’s approach is to favour rather brittle attacks. He’s not brusque, exactly, or insensitive but another cost of the recording comes at the expense of dynamic variance. Frankly, as well, a certain weariness came across me as he launched ever onwards buffeted by the unequal balance. Allied to this is the fact that Pierce tends to force passagework in a virile but terse way. It means that the slow movement is rather matter-of-fact and the finale very much too dogged. The Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra sounds oddly unconvinced by the whole affair – and in addition their principal horn has a saxophonic tone.

There are two fillers. The Franck is a rather Lisztian tone poem and though the balance still favours the pianist it’s less one-sided – or seems so at any rate. It would really need someone like a Moiseiwitsch to bring this evocative but not entirely successful work fully to life. Pierce has all the notes but the brooding and the mercurial are not perhaps ideally realised. Liszt’s bombastic Concerto Pathétique is a worthwhile discovery. The grandioso is on full show in this performance. Pitting filigree piano treble against static low brass is fully effective – and well brought off here – and Liszt certainly spins a suggestive flute line. Whether the Parsifalian brass at the end is as impressive I’ll leave to you to decide.

And whether you’ll be prepared to take a punt on fillers given the unsatisfactory Brahms is a more seriously moot point.

Jonathan Woolf

 




 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Return to Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.