Here at last we have a recording of Barber’s marvelous Piano Concerto to rival (if not surpass) the classic Szell/Browning recording for CBS (Sony), a performance which that company inexplicably has managed to reissue everywhere in the world except in the one place that it should: the U.S. While Szell and his Clevelanders remain unbeatable in terms of rhythmic precision and disciplined ensemble, Marin Alsop and her Scottish players offer ample excitement and drive, while pianist Stephen Prutsman certainly compares favorably to John Browning’s pioneering effort (his later, more sedate remake for RCA doesn’t factor into this particular equation at all).
Prutsman puts steel into the music where required (the opening cadenza and much of the finale), but he offers a slow movement of great delicacy and tenderness too. He knows when to back off and let the orchestra have the spotlight, and together with Alsop manages a genuine dialog in such passages as the finale’s second calm episode (music that’s pure Prokofiev in its ironic wit). It’s interesting how closely this finale resembles that of Ginastera’s First Piano Concerto, composed at the same time, and both seem to be taking the finale of Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto as a model. In any case, aside from Szell/Browning, there is no finer performance of this work available, and it’s very well recorded to boot.
As for the couplings, the catchy Commando March plays itself, and Die Natali, a marvelously inventive fantasia on Christmas carols, receives a lovely performance. Why this charming piece isn’t hauled out every December and played to death, as it surely deserves to be, is a genuine mystery. Medea’s Meditation and Dance of Vengeance features an excellent “meditation”, brooding but not too slow, that yields to a vividly detailed but somewhat underpowered “dance of vengeance”, just fractionally under tempo and lacking the ultimate hysterical frenzy (as in Munch/Boston) at the climaxes. However, given the overall excellence of the other items on offer, this isn’t a major liability, and for the Piano Concerto alone this disc will be an essential acquisition for anyone who cares about Barber’s music. [10/15/2002]
