Prokofiev: The Five Piano Concertos
Alexander Toradze, Kirov Orchestra & Valery Gergiev
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| Total: 19 Songs |
Customer Reviews
Absolute Must-Hear for the Second Concerto
Overall, this is not my favorite cycle of recordings of the Prokofiev Piano Concertos. I prefer Bronfman (With Mehta and Israel) on Concertos 1, 3, and 4. Toradze manages to make No. 5 exciting in a way I've not heard before. His obvious love for bringing out uncommon phrases underneath the musical textures is apparent here and works quite well. I don't think this works so well in the Left-Hand Concerto (No. 4), and I find No. 1 sloppy and No. 3 too fast and quirky. That said, this is a truly remarkable cycle, and the playing is always superb, even if it raises an eyebrow here and there. The orchestra is exactly what you probably know and love about Gergiev with Kirov. But, the Second Concerto...This recording is to DIE FOR. This performance alone is worth the price of the set. Unbelievable playing throughout; you can hear the man breathing heavily with the strain of the performance! The Orchestra's re-entrance at the end of the first movement cadenza is some of the most hair-raising music ever put onto a disc. This is unquestionably the most thoughtful performance of this work ever recorded. Toradze never disappoints, but few artists ever astonish listeners quite as decisively as he does on this record. If you love the Prokofiev Concertos, you really need to know this set.
Agreed: the 2nd Concerto is monumental, worth the set
For many years I have loved the old John Browning / Erich Leinsdorf version of the 2nd Concerto -- I still do. This one is also magnificent. Toradze works the piece differently, less romantically; his rendition is more muscular and angled but still fraught with that mix of beauty, anxiety, even terror that makes this piece of among the greatest ever composed.
Mon Dieu! The 2nd Concerto is Incredible!
I thought I knew the Prokofiev Concerto No. 2. I ranked it among my favorite works of all time. But when I just heard this on the radio, I was shaken. We had to pull over and finish it. I haven't heard such incredible music in my life, and I've heard nearly all the incredible music composed so far, I think. I even asked my wife "is that Prokofiev?" This was rendered so differently that I wasn't sure I was hearing the piece I knew. The telltale cascades were there, but maybe Shostakovich had written something I had missed. Still, the music kept saying Prokofiev! Prokofiev! And it was Concerto No. 2! But never mind how different this sounded. What matters is what is there. First, what genius could have written this but Prokofiev? Who can hear what has never even been hinted at before in Music? It takes a Beethoven, Skryabin, or THE Prokofiev. Such composition is unprecedented. But it takes a player to hear the inner workings of the composer's mind, and to make it possible on what is a large mechanical device to portray it as a cohesive story. Toradze has done the miraculous with this piece. I don't mean to slight the rest of the album; it's all great. But something happened while this one was being recorded. Everyone slipped into that same groove from which they emerged shaking their heads, maybe even waiting for the reverb to fade and the record light to click off before standing and cheering. This is one of those "something spectacular happened to us" moments, caught in recording of a "something spectacular happened to me" composer's opus, which is exceedingly rare and inspiring to hear. Wow!
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