When these recordings
first appeared, the consensus was that,
good as they were, the competition even
then was too fierce for them to be recommendable
at full price. Though there were then
not many CDs at less than full price,
Nos. 2 and 4 had the misfortune to appear
alongside Cristina Ortiz’s versions
of the same two concertos on the budding
Pickwick budget label. Incredibly, EMI
originally offered the Emperor Concerto
on its own – all of 37 minutes on a
full-price CD, though that was soon
re-coupled with the Third Concerto.
Now that the competition is even more
ferocious, is this set recommendable
at super-bargain price? (3 CDs for around
£10 in the UK.)
In fact, like the EMI
Triples box of the Mendelssohn Quartets
(review coming shortly), some of these
recordings have been available since
2001 at budget price on the EMI Encore
label: Nos. 3 and 5 on 5 74721 2; Triple
Concerto with Violin Romances on 5 74722
2 – in which form they remain available.
The most obvious comparison
for the Piano Concertos is with the
Kovacevich/Davis versions. Concertos
1-4 are available on Philips Duo 442
577-2; the Emperor is coupled with an
excellent performance of Piano Sonata
No.30 on 422 482-2, or with the Triple
Concerto and Violin Concerto on Duo
442 580-2. Long ago I got to know the
Beethoven Piano Concertos from Wihlem
Kempff’s recordings but I later transferred
my affection to Kovacevich and it is
with his versions of the Concertos that
my comparisons have been made. You could
still do a lot worse than with the Kempff:
Jonathan Woolf was very enthusiastic
about the reissue on the Rosette Collection
of his mono recordings (476
5299) but most will prefer the stereo
re-makes (427 237-2, 3 CDs at around
£16 in the UK, or Nos. 1-4 on 459 400-2,
No. 5 with the Triple Concerto and Violin
Concerto on 459 403-2, both two-for-one
sets, or 4 and 5 on 447 402-2, at mid-price.)
By comparison with
Kovacevich, Zacharias’s tempi are generally
fast: where Kovacevich takes 17:44 for
the opening movement of No.1, Zacharias
takes only 13:19, partly, but certainly
not wholly, because of the different
cadenzas employed. In the slow movements
of Nos.2, 3 and the Emperor the differences
are even more extreme – 10:24 against
8:44, 10:48 against 9:01 and 9:07 against
6:55. These are the most extreme examples;
elsewhere Zacharias is slightly slower
than Kovacevich. Rather than concentrate
on these movements where the tempi differ
so markedly, I listened to the Zacharias
versions blind, only later returning
to the problem movements for a ‘Building
a Library’ comparison. The one thing
that I had in mind at this stage was
my knowledge that fellow Musicweb reviewer
Paul Shoemaker has a high regard for
Zacharias as an exponent of Mozart –
how much does he stress the Mozartian
elements in these concertos?
Beethoven both displays
his debt to Mozart (and Haydn, though
he would not acknowledge it) and asserts
his own personality in the opening of
Concerto No.1, even before the entry
of the soloist. The Staatskapelle bring
out both these elements, the bold statements
and the lighter touches, very well.
The piano opens with one of those lighter
touches and Zacharias brings great delicacy
to this section, with light-fingered
playing which would not be out of place
in Mozart. He is also fully able to
capture the spirit of the more assertive
passages. The tempo is fast but articulation
and phrasing never suffer and the recording
catches both the softest of touches
from the soloist and the orchestra and
those more assertive passages. The rather
rudimentary notes in the booklet describe
the First Concerto as ‘spacious’ and
this is fully brought out, despite the
fastish tempo.
The booklet does not
indicate the provenance of the cadenza,
but I understand that Zacharias employs
Beethoven’s own throughout. The cadenza
is played with flying fingers in about
a minute, never outstaying its welcome.
The opening of the
first movement in the Philips version
is much more deliberate, tending to
stress the Beethovenian rather than
the Mozartian qualities. Though Kovacevich
is as light-fingered as Zacharias, he
does tend, like the orchestra, to emphasise
the more assertive passages a little
more than Zacharias. The recording is
perhaps a little more opaque than the
EMI, but not at all bad for 1970 ADD:
it never gets in the way of appreciation
of the performance. Again, the notes
in my copy do not specify the cadenza
employed – I am working from the older
note-free single-CD issue on Philips
Concert Classics, still available singly
(1 and 2 on 422 968-2); the notes in
the Duo reissue may be more informative.
There is little to choose in virtuosity
between the two soloists here but the
Kovacevich’s cadenza is longer and marked
by greater variety of tempo. You pay
your money and take your pick whether
you find the longer cadenza more varied
or more long-winded.
In the slow movement
and finale Zacharias and Vonk certainly
bring out the spaciousness of the music:
tempi are very similar to those of Kovacevich/Davis
and performance honours are about even
in these movements, though the greater
clarity and spaciousness of the EMI
recording are again in evidence as against
the more-than-acceptable Philips. By
the end of the First Concerto I was
beginning to wonder whether my commitment
to Kovacevich might be wavering.
Concerto No.2 was actually
Beethoven’s first, so one would expect
Zacharias’s Mozartian credentials to
stand up well here – as, indeed, they
do, though the Beethovenian aspects
of the music are not missed by soloist
or orchestra. Some have compared Zacharias’s
sparkling, crisp articulation with Kempff,
an especially apt comparison for me
in this concerto, which I first heard
in the Kempff/Leitner version on an
LP borrowed from the Oxford University
Record Library. The slow movement is
faster than on the Kovacevich recording
but there was no sense that it felt
too hurried at any time. The finale
is extremely well handled. Once again,
the performance holds up surprisingly
well against the Kovacevich and the
recording again has the edge over the
Philips.
The Third Concerto
is in many ways my favourite, with Beethoven
fully his own person. The minor-key
orchestral opening, with its hint of
mysteries to come, is very well handled
here, as is its modulation into something
more hopeful before the piano entry.
Again, the pianism is remarkable for
its agility and delicacy of touch, here
and throughout the movement – not least
in the cadenza. The slow movement of
this concerto is as intense as that
of any of the late piano sonatas: it
receives a suitably intense performance
here. Listening to it without comparative
timings to hand, I would never have
imagined that it was almost two minutes
faster than the Kovacevich: it never
felt hurried. The finale is pretty well
ideal: on first listening, I thought
I noticed some awkwardness of phrasing,
but this was not apparent on re-hearing.
A glorious free-wheeling performance.
Did I say that the
Third Concerto was my favourite? Hearing
Zacharias’s version of the Fourth, I’m
now not so sure. It’s that little bit
freer from the pompousness that sometimes
spoils my enjoyment of Beethoven, especially
in the Emperor Concerto and the Fifth
Symphony and Zacharias plays it in a
way which minimises what pompousness
there is – the Mozart touch again, perhaps.
Yet the performance never minimises
the fact that this is a work with something
important to say.
Can Zacharias repeat
the trick for the Emperor Concerto?
Yes, he does – it may be that I have
warmed towards this concerto, but I
did not experience any of the annoyances
that I sometimes feel when hearing it.
Delicacy of touch is again combined
with ability to pull out the stops when
the music requires it, without my ever
feeling that Beethoven was overdoing
things. On its first appearance this
performance was praised for its sensitivity
and energy but found wanting for the
power and reach of Beethoven’s arguments.
These ‘failings’ are my very reason
for liking the performance. What about
the tempo for the second movement? Again,
as in Nos. 2 and 3, I did not feel that
it was too hurried.
In the Triple Concerto,
too, another favourite work of mine
and an unjustly neglected work, nothing
was overdone: the work’s affinity with
the Archduke Trio rather than with the
Emperor is paramount, though, again,
the big statements are given their full
– not over-full – weight. The other
soloists, the Gewandhaus Orchestra and
Kurt Masur all make excellent partners
for Zacharias. Originally coupled with
the Violin Romances, which many collectors
will already have, this recording now
makes an excellent companion for the
Piano Concertos.
Alternative bargain-price
versions of the Triple Concerto are
the Oistrakh-Oborin-Knushevitzky-Sargent
on EMI Gemini 3 81487 2 (2 CDs at super-bargain
price, with an excellent version of
the Brahms Double Concerto, etc.) It
is with this version of the Triple that
I have made my comparisons. Here, as
in comparisons between Kovacevich’s
and Zacharias’s tempi in the Piano Concertos,
the tempo for the opening movement,
at 17:03, is noticeably brisker than
the 19:12 on the Gemini recording. This
leads to a slight tendency to underplay
the big statements but, as with the
Emperor Concerto, I found this a benefit
rather than a drawback.
Many think very highly
of the Oistrakh-Rostropich-Richter-Karajan
version of the Triple Concerto, on EMI
4 76886 2 at mid price, but this version
is too well-drilled for me. (Admittedly,
I haven’t heard it since its LP incarnation,
which was regarded as problematical
sound-wise, but it was the performance,
not the recording, that I disliked.)
I first got to know this work almost
simultaneously via the Gemini version
above and the Anda-Schneiderhahn-Fournier-Fricsay
version on DG 477 5341, coupled with
the Brahms Double Concerto and I still
have a very high regard for both these
versions. Ateş
Orga made the bargain-price Arte Nova
version (82876
64015 2, unusually coupled with
the Septet) a Musicweb Bargain of the
Month and David
Dunsmore also sang the praises of
this version.
The two most recent
editions of the Penguin Guide declare
the recording of the c minor concerto
to be analogue but I have no reason
to doubt that the details above are
correct – that it is a digital recording
made in 1988. All the recordings are
excellent, with the three instruments
well separated from each other in the
Triple Concerto, and with the soloist(s)
well defined against the orchestra throughout,
but not unduly highlighted. I played
some of the concertos on both of my
systems: one mellower, the other brighter.
The results were excellent in both cases:
like the best recordings, it is faithful
without drawing attention to itself.
The information in
the tri-lingual booklet is fairly brief,
but much better than the little or nothing
that purchasers of bargain-price recordings
often receive. Like all these EMI Triples,
the cover is pretty non-descript.
This is now the least
expensive way to obtain the five Piano
Concertos and the Triple Concerto. That,
combined with the fact that I had absolutely
no serious criticisms of any of these
CDs, earns it a thumbs-up. It may not
be among the very best, but it is very
good: it may even supplant Kovacevich/Davis
as my version of choice. Those who have
read my campaign for the restoration
of the Kovacevich/Davis Mozart Concerto
recordings, in my review
of the recent Regis/Tirimo recordings,
will recognise that as praise indeed.
Brian Wilson
Christian Zacharias (piano) 
