Tamás Vásáry creates an unusual stylistic association in this distinctly un-Russian performance of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto. His playing has all the elegance, poise, and beauty we expect in Mozart. He’s not a bit interested in the doom-laden chords and grim tension of Ashkenazy’s first movement on Decca Legends, but he does infuse the second subject with a romantic urgency that also informs the dramatic finale. It is in the beautiful second movement where Vásáry creates that sense of Mozartean timelessness, and paradoxically, Yuri Ahronovitch and the London Symphony accompany him with a big, lush, Rachmaninov sound.
The Paganini Rhapsody fares less well with this kind of treatment. Vásáry’s reading lacks the edge-of-the-seat virtuosity that makes this work a showstopper. And Ahronovitch’s accompaniment never takes wing the way Fritz Reiner’s does for Van Cliburn on RCA. The Deustsche Grammophon recording has come up well in this transfer. A bonus on this disc is the inclusion of three Rachmaninov preludes that are probingly played by Lazar Berman in rather close, dry sound.
