If you're looking for a set of all nine Beethoven symphonies, this one is pretty hard to beat. It's the most consistently fine interpretively, as well as supremely well played and gorgeously recorded.

David Hurwitz

The First Concerto is equally exciting: a vivid, clarion performance. In the Rondo finale, you can tell that both Brahms and Mr. Serkin are devotees of Bach.

Anthony Tommasini - New York Times

Two exceedingly well-filled discs give us the cream of Rubinstein's piano music, beginning with the delicious Melody in F, his most famous composition

Classic CD

Ashkenazy long ago reached the stage where he can control and shape every nuance in this teeming piano part and keep poetry and structure in a satisfying balance. Some of his phrasing is uniquely beguiling—the swooning surge into fig. 4 is one of a host of treasurable details on the new recording and it is typical of his sensitivity to emotional ebb and flow. He has always had a special insight into the long plateau before the final peroration, and the spaciousness of the recording emphasizes how beautifully he floats the tone in lyrical passages and how intelligently he withdraws to let the orchestral contribution through.

Gramophone, 11/1986

Vladimir Ashkenazy's way with the Rachmaninov Second Piano Concerto noticeably mellowed in the years between his blistering 1963 premiere recording on Decca with Kirill Kondrashin and this 1986 reading. That's not to say it became mushy or dull, but it is certainly heavier, characterized by a prevailing darkness that calls to mind Stravinsky's description of Rachmaninov as a "six-foot scowl." Ashkenazy's rich tone and emphatic phrasing assures an overall somber cast, while Bernard Haitink draws similarly-countenanced playing from the Concertgebouw Orchestra–the low strings especially. However, there is a respite from the gloom in the quite touching rendition of the lyrical slow movement.

Concerto No. 4 is supposedly a lighter work, but it's hard to tell in Ashkenazy's equally stern reading. Again he summons robust tone from his instrument and manages to make the first movement's main theme sound uniquely grim. For his part, Haitink heightens the drama with threatening horns in the second movement. Even so, the performers render the brighter finale with the requisite zest. Decca had only recently begun recording in the Concertgebouw, and it shows in the sound's abundant reverberation and early digital glare. Still, the sense of space and sonic bulk communicated by the recording matches the performances, and for some listeners this will be preferable to the dynamically limited sound of Ashkenazy's interpretively superior 1970s renditions with André Previn.

Victor Carr, Jr., Classics Today

These are wonderful performances, among the best I've ever heard. The Concerto, in fact, is THE best I've heard. Tempos in the Concerto are fast yet comfortable, with a lot of flexibility. Ashkenazy brings out all the bravura, but also achieves much lyricism, which seems to elude most pianists. Haitink and the Concertgebouw accompany him beautifully. The Rhapsody goes very well, although I would not say that it is better than Entremont/Ormandy or Pennario/Fiedler, let alone the classic William Kapell/Fritz Reiner version. The only reason I have not given this CD 5 stars is the sound engineering. It is certainly clear enough, but is lacking in body. The sumptuousness one expects in Rachmaninoff's orchestrations is merely hinted at, an ailment all too familiar from early digital recordings. Nevertheless, the Concerto demands to be heard.

David Saemann

I have only praise. Each of the four works here is well characterized, and the typically Lisztian varying tempos are spot on.

This is the kind of disc that reminds us that CDs can offer pretty good value in terms of length compared with vinyl LPs which played for around 40-45 minutes, and of course having the Hungarian Fantasy and Totentanz along with the two concertos gives a collector a useful conspectus of Liszt's music for piano and orchestra. The Lyonnais pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet is not new to the catalogue, but this is the first concerto record of his that has come my way and on the evidence of this playing he is an artist of considerable temperament and technique who shows a real feeling for the panache, devilry and sheer seductive charm of the music. The skill and sensitivity of Charles Dutoit and his Montreal orchestra are already well proven, of course, as is the excellence of their recording venue of St Eustache's Church, and they, too, contribute greatly to the success of these performances. The piano sound seems faithful, and if here and there I would welcome a touch more glitter (whether gipsy or Gothic) that is perhaps asking illegitimately for it to be more sensational and less natural: at any rate, it is pleasing and the balance is of that right kind that allows the piano sound to blend into the orchestra's in places just as it would do in a concert performance. No less effective here are the many places where the music drops into a kind of chamber texture, with just one orchestral instrument featuring alongside the piano.

Indeed, I have only praise. Each of the four works here is well characterized, and the typically Lisztian varying tempos are spot on, unrushed but never deliberate and always leading naturally from one to the next. Climactic passages are powerful, but the sound remains pleasant and avoids the crudity that can emerge from these scores in less sensitive hands. In all, then, a fine issue. It joins a strong field, of course, but Richter's splendid 1961 Philips account of the two concertos with Kondrashin and the LSO has just those works and plays for a mere 39 minutes while remaining at full price. Zimerman's recent DG version is leonine yet sensitive, well recorded and arguably very special in its aristocratic quality, and for the concertos alone is probably still the best choice, but there again, his disc includes the Totentanz but not the Hungarian Fantasia and its 56 minutes are not as generous as the present well-played and well-recorded 69.

Christopher Headington, GRAMOPHONE (1/1992)

Many of Jean-Yves Thibaudet's recent recordings – not only his pale Rachmaninov, but even his dimly characterized Debussy – have represented him as a technically fluent but interpretatively self-effacing pianist, one who prefers to skate across the music than take a position on what lies beneath the surface. One might have expected the polished veneer of Mendelssohn to encourage more of this faceless graciousness; but in the event, these turn out to be impressively firm, even tough-minded, performances. Not that they're brutal, as Katsaris's unyielding readings of the concertos are: whether in the fluid transition into the second theme of the first movement of the First Concerto, the supple shading of the cantilena in the following Andante or the artful weighting of the cadences in the Variations, Thibaudet offers urgency without sacrificing poise. Nor, for all his attention to the music's larger design, does he disdain the concertos' glitter, as Kalichstein does in his daringly dark and probing readings. Still, it's fair to say that Thibaudet's performances are more desperate than dapper, more thrilling than tender, more spiky than succulent. Note, for instance, how his slightly craggy articulation in the Second Concerto's Adagio keeps the music's sentiment at bay, or how his jabs at the left-hand octave interruptions (for example, at 1'15") inject a sense of threat to the normally placid Andante that introduces the Rondo capriccioso. Those who dip into Mendelssohn for his charm may find it all too stern – but those open to Thibaudet's tart perspective may well rank this among the most persuasive recordings that he has given us. Blomstedt and his orchestra are at one with the pianist and the engineers have captured them with power and immediacy. Jeremy Siepmann's notes only add to the pleasures of the disc. Warmly recommended.

Peter J. Rabinowitz

Grieg & Chopin: Piano Concertos
Classical | FLAC (EAC Rip) + Log | RS.com | 231 MB | 2000
Jean-Yves Thibaudet; Valery Gergiev; Rotterdam Phil Orch

The Grieg piano concerto is one of those works that are hindered by their own popularity. It has been a constant feature of concert life for so long that it is sometimes dismissed as an old warhorse, making it difficult to approach it with fresh ears. Yet that is what Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Valery Gergiev have managed to do here, to judge from the results. From the very opening chord, which somehow gives an almost Hollywood feel to the famous descending piano passage that starts the work, there is a sense of discovery that you don't expect to find in such a well-known piece. The dramatic bluster is all there. But so is some very delicate playing from both soloist and orchestra. Chopin's second piano concerto (the first to be written, but the second to be published) is no stranger to our concert platforms, either, and again we get a fresh, unhackneyed reading. As with the Grieg, Thibaudet's entrance is dramatic, and both soloist and conductor seem to take pleasure in bringing out the romanticism. If you have any doubts, try the deliciously lyrical Larghetto movement, and they will be instantly dispelled.

Keith Clarke