For a pianist purported to be microphone-shy it’s ironic how many of Sviatoslav Richter’s greatest recordings emanated from the studio. His fabled 1961 Liszt Concertos are cases in point. Here they receive their finest sonic incarnations yet. Although there’s more tape hiss than before, you hear a wider range of orchestral timbre, more dynamic heft, plus intensified accentuation and note attacks. It’s as if we’re looking at an original Van Gogh still life as opposed to a reproduction, however excellent the latter might be. As a result, the brass sonorities gain pungency and the piano tone acquires more roundness and bloom without losing one iota of its cutting edge. Best of all, the performances still amaze after all these years. Richter’s transcendental musicianship and technique manage to weave the music’s febrile virtuosity and lyrical rhetoric into a mesmerizing whole. For his part, Kondrashin invokes the spirit and aesthetic of Toscanini, eliciting gaunt, stinging ensemble work and galvanizing rhythmic precision from the London Symphony musicians.
Three Beethoven Sonatas fill out the disc. The two Op. 49 pieces and the Op. 14 No. 2 G major sonata stem from a 1963 Paris session, from which only the Op. 14 No. 1 and Op. 22 sonatas have previously appeared on CD (in Philips’ Authorized Richter Edition). Richter borders on glibness as he quickly glides through Op. 14 No. 2’s first movement, but his fleet fingers in the second and third project more character. By contrast, Richter trades primary colors for gentle pastels in the Op. 49 works. His lyrical refinement markedly differs from the tauter sobriety of his live 1990s versions included in the aforementioned Richter Edition. Still, Richter fans will be glad to have the Beethoven works on CD. A word of warning: don’t jettison your “Solo” edition of the concertos just yet, for it’s coupled with Richter’s terrific live 1966 Liszt Sonata.
