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Acclaim
CLASSICAL CD OF THE WEEK
Rachmaninov Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 4, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Simon Trpceski, piano
Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Rachmaninov Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 4, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Simon Trpceski, piano Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Avie Records
The young Macedonian virtuoso teams up again with Petrenko's blossoming RLPO to complete their outstanding survey of Rachmaninov's works for piano and orchestra. This programme of the two "unpopular" concertos - the early F sharp minor, completed in 1892, when the composer was only 18, and the late G minor, of 1926 - and the immortal Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is finer still than their coupling of the eternally beloved Second and Third Concertos. What I find so captivating about these young musicians' Rachmaninov is the lack of bombast and gooey false sentiment. They give due emotional weight to to the sense of loss Rachmaninov conveys in the andante of the F sharp minor - revised in 1917, as he was contemplating departure from Russian during the revolution - and in the largo of the G minor, permeated with nostalgia and homesickness for the country he would never see again. Trpceski captures the music's protean mood switches to perfection, his mercurial fingers dashing off the vivace flourishes of the outer movements and the most brilliant Paganini variations with insouciant bravura and brio. His makes this staggeringly difficult music sound easy and beguilingly light on its feet. These performances are a meeting of dazzling musical minds, offering an untraditional approach that never sounds wilful, attention-seeking or eccentric.
Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times
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