Several sonic and stylistic drawbacks concern this expertly rehearsed yet somewhat detached performance of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto. On the plus side, it boasts a more judicious recorded balance between soloists and orchestra than its recent competitors from EMI (Argerich and friends, the Eroica Trio). However, among the soloists, Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s piano registers at a distance in relationship to his closely miked string playing colleagues. And the “historically informed” wiry, vibratoless tone Nikolaus Harnoncourt favors from the Chamber Orchestra of Europe’s string section seems stylistically at odds with violin soloist Thomas Zehetmair’s pulsating, sometimes cloying vibrato.
The Choral Fantasy fares no better. Aimard’s beautifully worked out phrasing in the solo piano introduction does not convey the music’s febrile, improvisatory impulse in the manner of Julius Katchen, Rudolf Serkin, Anton Kuerti, or more recently, Hélène Grimaud, although his gorgeous and utterly even trills are enough to stop most pianists in their tracks. But how flat and undifferentiated the orchestra’s first-chair players sound in the variations compared to their Swedish counterparts under Salonen (the flute and bassoon soloists, for example). The blatty brass dominate in loud tuttis, in contrast to the clearer delineation you hear from Salonen, Bernstein, Abbado, and Klemperer, despite the latter’s sluggish tempos. At least Harnoncourt’s solo singers and choir make vivid and vital impressions. Happily, Aimard and Harnoncourt achieve a bubbling repartée in the little B-flat Rondo, turning in a fine performance that easily contends with the venerable DG recording featuring Sviatoslav Richter. An uneven release, all around.
