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Mordecai Shehori - The Celebrated New York Concerts Volume
2
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1797-1827) Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111(1822)
[25:09] Sergei RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943)
Six Moments Musicaux Op.16 (1896) [23:16] Dimitri KABALEVSKY (1904-87)
Piano Sonata No. 3 Op. 46 (1946) [15:42] Franz LISZT (1811-1886) Après une lecture de Dante fantasia quasi una sonata
- Années de pèlerinage, Second Year ("Italie"),
suite for piano, S. 161 (LW A55) [14:48] Mordecai
Shehori (piano)
rec. Merkin Concert Hall, New York City, May 1984 (Beethoven
and Rachmaninoff); May 1985 (Liszt) and May 1987 (Kabalevsky) CEMBAL
D’AMOUR CD128 [78:55]
Recorded at Merkin Concert Hall in New York between
1984 and 1987 these are yet more documents illustrating Mordecai
Shehori’s powerful, protean pianism. He approaches each piece
as a musician not a cavalier and the results attest to his
superior intellectual and digital control across a wide range
of styles. He certainly lacks for nothing in panache or technique
in Liszt or Kabalevsky but the programme also shows his acute
concern for colour and texture in Rachmaninoff and for profundity
of spirit in Beethoven.
His Rachmaninoff Moments Musicaux
are examples of his full blooded romantic credentials. The
evocative sound world of the E flat minor registers through
acute pedalling and control of dynamics; he shades things
perceptively. The sense of ebb and flow in the music is captivatingly
brought out - Shehori is faster than the composer in his
1940 Victor recording but he doesn’t sound rushed. Though
Shehori moved in Horowitz’s orbit for a while his performance
of the B minor sounds nothing like Horowitz’s; Shehori is
much faster, gaunter, with a terse, unsentimentalised and
pervasive gloom. Each of these pieces then is etched with
a strong, pictorial character and Shehori does the honours
in the case of the E minor. This was once spectacularly recorded
by Moiseiwitsch; Shehori brings to it a palpable sense of
controlled, coiled excitement. . Warm, mellow and consoling
Shehori’s D flat major sounds, once more, entirely personal – Sofronitsky
for instance sounds completely different in his responses.
This is a first class exploration by Shehori.
Talking
of Horowitz and Moiseiwitsch they both recorded Kabalevsky’s
Third Sonata. Once again, as one would expect of him, Shehori’s
viewpoint is all his own, though closer perhaps to Horowitz.
Shehori exhibits fearsome, trenchant control. He is duly
winsome when Kabalevsky asks for it in the first movement
but the power and struggle of the central movement is communicated
with fierce assurance. He’s unusually expressive in this
central panel and catches the giocoso martial cockiness of
the finale – sweeping and commanding playing.
His Liszt is similarly
engaged; in fact it’s adrenalin filled to an appreciable
degree and here the slightly clangourous recording can exaggerate
those adamantine Shehori attacks. The CD recital actually
opens with Beethoven’s Olympian Op.111. Shehori refuses to
linger and meets all digital challenges with assurance. His
playing brings with it a sense of unsentimentalised refinement
as well as necessary rhythmic vivacity. It’s playing that
doesn’t countenance the philosophic or stoic but it has nobility
and grandeur.
Once again then Shehori’s
New York recitals show a musician of imagination, technique
and control – playing of undogmatic insight in fact.
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