It’s so easy today to get superior quality at a low price in the classical music world, but this isn’t one of those times. For that, you need look no further than Wit/Kliegel on Naxos. These performances just won’t do. Certainly Kyrill Rodin is an able soloist, but thanks to very artificial balances his instrument sounds monstrous in both concertos. That makes nonsense of the soft opening of the First concerto’s slow movement, and as far as the orchestra is concerned, the microphones emphasize the piccolo to a painful extent while putting the mushy timpani in another room. The solo horn is adequate in the First concerto, but the pair of them are simply atrocious in the Second (the fanfare that opens the finale is almost unlistenable, to the extent that it’s audible at all over a snare drum roll that sounds like radio static).
While the performance of the First concerto is adequate, save for a very droopy third-movement cadenza, that of the Second is excruciating. The first movement drags a bit, granted, but the finale lasts an interminable 21 minutes; that’s at least five minutes slower than just about any other performance, and under these circumstances the piece simply falls to bits. Certainly Rodin has the technique to play the piece, and it beggars belief that he and Krimets actually might have thought that the music sounds better this way. There are so many fine, even exceptional performances of these two works (most notably Schiff on Philips and the recent Wallfisch/Brabbins on Nimbus) that you’d have to be crazy to give this barely mediocre release any serious consideration. If you’re on a budget, go with the very good Naxos edition.
