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Olga Scheps’ Slogging Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto

Victor Carr Jr

Artistic Quality:

Sound Quality:

You wouldn’t think it was possible to make the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto sound tediously dull, but Olga Scheps and Carlos Dominguez-Nieto have managed to do just that. The performance is ever-so-dutiful and safe. This is evident right from the introduction, where Dominguez-Nieto’s dispiritingly slow tempo and furry-mitten attacks make this normally arresting passage sound inert. Scheps follows in kind with her broad and very proper rendering of the famous chorded arpeggios, but with none of the pizazz, or sense of menace we get from Cliburn, Argerich, or Matsuev.

Under this approach, the first movement seems interminable, and at 23:03 is even longer than Victoria Postnikova’s Decca recording, which at least had Rozhdestvensky’s intensely-wrought orchestral accompaniment going for it. Nothing intense about Dominguez-Nieto’s contribution, he sounds perfectly content to have the WDR Symphony relegated to the background. And no, this is not solely due to the recording balance, as the orchestra does fill the space in tutti passages. Still, there’s an overall murkiness to the sound, which I suspect stems from the microphone placement in the rather reverberant hall.

Scheps is an accomplished pianist who clearly knows the work, but you don’t get the impression she’s lived with it long enough to place her own personal stamp on it, the way Argerich has after decades of experience. (Then again, the young Van Cliburn had no decades behind him when he delivered his powerful and gripping rendition for RCA.) Instead of emotional and rhapsodic Tchaikovsky, Scheps gives us the poise and posture of someone playing a Mozart concerto. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then this version might be for you. Otherwise the listed alternatives, along with many others, are a better choice.

Scheps has a reputation as a Chopin pianist, so it’s not surprising that she plays the filler material, including excerpts from The Seasons and The Nutcracker, in a very Chopin-esque manner (Rubinstein’s Chopin, not Zimmerman’s). Unlike those artists, however, the result is not memorable.


Recording Details:

Reference Recording: Cliburn (RCA); Argerich (DG & Philips); Matsuev (RCA)

  • TCHAIKOVSKY, PIOTR ILYICH:
    Piano Concerto No. 1; Chanson triste; The Seasons (October, November); The Nutcracker--Concert Suite (arr. for solo piano by Mikhail Pletnev)

    Soloists: Olga Scheps (piano)

    WDR Sinfonieorchester, Carlos Dominguez-Nieto

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