Although Testament’s 1997 transfers of these 1957 Beethoven recordings markedly improved upon their best-sounding LP incarnations, EMI’s newer Great Recordings of the Century remasterings boast greater amplitude and richness of detail, all to Emil Gilels’ benefit. In several respects I prefer these recordings to Gilels’ remakes with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. The pianist’s spacious conception of the Fourth Concerto cuts Beethoven’s rippling passagework and long trills plenty of poetic slack, and he doesn’t beat the first movement’s left-hand szforzandos over your head as he did under Szell.
Like Gieseking, Gilels’ symmetrical phrase shaping sidesteps the angular accentuation and harmonic tension Leon Fleisher brings out, and he favors Beethoven’s alternate, slightly jarring first-movement cadenza. Still, this remains an impressive performance, and the Philharmonia Orchestra’s first-desk woodwind soloists deserve special mention.
The Emperor Concerto’s outer movements contain a few ensemble lapses and wrong notes, while Gilels presses ahead in passages that would considerably gain from greater inflection and flexibility (the first movement’s B major episode, for instance). But the slow movement is worth this CD’s price. Leopold Ludwig’s basic tempo is unusually slow, yet it’s gorgeously sustained and never drags. Gilels’ hushed entrance is one of the miracles of recorded sound: it appears like an apparition, with every note an exquisite pearl to savor, and not a hint of self-awareness. Pure genius.
