Tchaikovsky: Complete Piano Concertos - Postnikova, Rozhdestvensky (2010)

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Tchaikovsky: Complete Piano Concertos - Postnikova, Rozhdestvensky (2010)

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Tchaikovsky wrote four works for piano and orchestra: the three concertos, and the Concert Fantasy in G Op.56 (1884). The First Concerto ranks today as possibly the most famous piano concerto ever composed. Its entry into the world was, however, far from easy. Dismissed by critics as a flop, and by its dedicatee Nikolai Rubinstein as unplayable – which caused a rift between Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky, the concerto was premiered in Boston in the USA in 1875, and the dedicatee was Hans von Bülow, who conducted the performance with Benjamin Johnson Lang as soloist. Its success was never in doubt from then on. Rubinstein relented and undertook to champion the concerto. It is a large, dramatic work with its roots firmly in the Chopin/Mendelssohn school.

The underrated Second Concerto (1880) was for many years performed in a cut version made by Tchaikovsky’s pupil Siloti. This cut the jewel of the concerto – the ‘triple concerto’-like second movement for violin, cello and piano. Happily the recording in this set is of the original version. It is a very strong work, with great tunes and a tremendously virtuosic solo part – the huge cadenza in the first movement is especially impressive.

The Third Concerto (1893) – today only performed as a one-movement Konzertstück was created out of the abandoned Seventh Symphony in E major. The first movement of both concerto and symphony are almost identical, but then Tchaikovsky wrote an Andante and finale (orchestrated by Taneyev) as the other two movements, but abandoned these as well in favour of the one-movement work we hear today. The Third Concerto is technically very challenging for the performer, and contains some wonderful music.

Composer: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Performer: Viktoria Postnikova
Conductor: Gennadi Rozhdestvensky
Orchestra/Ensemble: Vienna Symphony Orchestra

Reviews: If you are looking for the Tchaikovsky piano concertos in the grandest of grand manners then look no further than this 2 CD set in its single width case.

From the roar of the brass in the First Concerto to the opulent pizzicato and the super-sized sound of the piano everything is in place to set the pulse racing. The vehement fist-shaking impact of the horns at the start of the First Piano Concerto sets the tone which is untiringly maintained. The single movement Third Concerto storms along with the best. At 4.03 listen to that machine-gun rapping attack and the Lisztian maelstrom at 9:38. It reflects wonderfully vital and communicative playing. The blazingly regal rhetoric and poetic introspection of the Second Piano Concerto has, over the last few decades, become known in the work’s grown-up uncut version. Before that it was heard in the abbreviated Siloti edition. Postnikova here favours the full score which sprawls lavishly and magnificently across approaching fifty minutes. The finale has all the lean and glitter of the Litolff scherzo yet with a more sovereign bearing.

Vienna’s second orchestra play their hearts out. This is vivid music-making rather than production-line routine. The beaming geniality of Rozhdestvensky does not undermine the dramatic power of Tchaikovsky’s writing. Certainly this is not rent-a-performance from Postnikova (Rozhdestvensky's wife since 1969). It’s florid and idiosyncratic. Postnikova was born in Moscow and studied with Yakov Flier. She is no stranger to Tchaikovsky – how could she be. Apart from this cycle - and in the same decade - she also recorded the complete solo piano works on seven discs for Erato on ED 2292-45969-2 and 2292-45512-2.

The recordings throughout are bold as brass, red-blooded, wide-stage (try the first movement of the Second Concerto from 20:00-22:30) and almost luridly exciting in the grandest Decca FFRR tradition. This is big-boned idiomatic Tchaikovsky bursting with character just as we would expect from her Scriabin Piano Concerto on Chandos also with Rozhdestvensky. These works sounds utterly wonderful in twilight era analogue with a toweringly present piano sound. The fine notes are Tchaikovsky authority, John Warrack.