Any rare and unreleased material by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli is bound to attract the pianist’s most rabid admirers. The three Scarlatti sonatas opening this disc stem from a February 12, 1952 recital first issued as a two-LP set on Cetra; they show up here altogether for the first time on CD. Both the A major L. 483 and D major L. 461 are dazzlingly sculpted and articulated, while the B minor L. 449 sounds rushed and even unsteady in contrast to many of the pianist’s calmer, better-controlled versions, such as the 1943 Telefunken studio recording or live 1969 reading on Aura.
A previously unpublished studio performance from December 25, 1953 of Mozart’s K. 415 Concerto suffers from boxy sound and skewed balances in comparison to the traversal recorded a month earlier (November 29) and issued by EMI. Yet Michelangeli’s extraordinary poise and pinpointed finger work (the Finale’s double notes, for instance) differs little, and the Torino radio orchestra, if hardly world-class, outplays its scrawny Naples counterpart. Poor balances also mar a newly unearthed live Ravel Concerto under Markevitch, where the piano is way up front and the orchestra virtually in another country, save for the harp. Still, you can infer a pungent, whiplash quality to Markevitch’s chordal attacks in the outer movements while being treated to the ghastliest solo clarinet in the slow movement’s recorded history. Those who know Michelangeli’s incomparable 1957 studio recording will find no surprises, save for a little more spontaneity and tonal magic in the first movement’s “musical saw” passage, and less pronounced breaking of hands in the slow movement. Sonic considerations obviously knock this release from general recommendation, yet Michelangeli completists are duly alerted.
