Solomon must have liked the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto because he recorded it twice, and while this version marks a bit of an improvement over his boring 1929 rendition (recently reissued by Naxos), it still isn’t going to set any standards for virtuosity, insight, or excitement. The slow movement comes off best, displaying the simple dignity for which this artist is perhaps best known. Elsewhere, the performance benefits more from Issay Dobrowen’s characterful accompaniments than from Solomon’s contribution. In the principal subject of the first movement’s allegro, or the orchestral interludes in the finale, the music acquires a zest and buoyancy that only makes the soloist’s contribution sound all the more flat. To his credit, Solomon knows when to back off and let the orchestra’s wind soloists take center stage, but in the final analysis he fails to successfully walk the fine line between sensitivity and dullness.
If anything, the above observation is even more true of the Scriabin, a much tougher work to capture owing to its peculiar construction, with that very long finale. Solomon offers a fleet account of the brief opening movement, a central theme and variations that could use more contrast and variety, and a finale that sounds longer than it should. Oddly, as with the Tchaikovsky, Solomon’s tempos are not unusually slow; indeed the timings of these performances are all normal, or even a smidge on the swift side. But they tend to sound slow in the sense of being too placid whenever Solomon has the spotlight, particularly in the face of Dobrowen’s far more eruptive accompaniments. Despite close cooperation between the two and good coordination between piano and orchestra (though less than ideal balances in the Scriabin), there are clearly two temperaments at work here, and if I had to choose between them, I’d take Dobrowen over Solomon in a second. Unfortunately we’re stuck with both, making this reissue nothing special. Careful remastering also can’t improve the mediocre original sonics to any large degree. For fans only.
