Alicia de Larrocha’s late-1970s recording of Beethoven’s Emperor concerto with Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic stands as a solid and forthright contender in a field distinguished by more intensely projected and spiritually fulfilling versions. To be sure, there’s much to admire in the pianist’s crisply-focused fingerwork–for instance, her very clean and varied articulation in the Rondo’s main theme, and the way she creates a sustained, kinetic impression in the first movement’s brief cadenzas with hardly any pedal. At the same time, you miss the hurling brio and defiance that characterize the outer movements’ virtuosic scales and runs. Larrocha paints the slow movement’s delicate phrases in pleasant, uneventful colors that don’t begin to hint at the introspective poetry and nuance with which pianists like Schnabel, Arrau, and Gilels leave you breathless. Nor does Zubin Mehta’s firm support go the extra characterful mile, unless you count the tiny, slightly gauche luftpause he inserts right before the first-movement recapitulation. I prefer the more varied and involving orchestral framework he brings to his Emperor recording with the Israel Philharmonic and soloist Radu Lupu.
From a standpoint of technical polish as an end in itself, Olli Mustonen is front runner among the few who’ve recorded Beethoven’s piano arrangement of his D major Violin Concerto. However, his fast tempos, metronomic symmetry, flippant detaché articulation, and amazingly even scales, runs, trills, and decorative flourishes rarely read between the music’s lines nor illuminate its drama and lyricism. The orchestra’s undernourished strings and somewhat nasal brass and wind sections contribute little of consequence. I much prefer pianist Mykola Suk’s less flashy, infinitely more stylish interpretation on the TNC label, although my personal favorite, RCA’s broad, brooding, and profound Peter Serkin/Seiji Ozawa version from the early ’70s, has yet to appear on CD.
