RUBINSTEIN plays the Chopin Piano Concertos (1958/61) - PASC380

REVIEW Piano Concerto No. 1, original LP issue

Rubinstein's previous recording of Chopin's E minor Concerto was spoilt by poor quality , and it is a pleasure to report that this great artist has now been recorded as he deserves. He is a little too near the microphone in the stereo version. but you soon get used to it, and the balance on the mono seems better. But piano and orchestra sound fuller and rounder on the stereo although personally I would be very happy to have either.

The orchestra plays the opening music with plenty of life, though the tempo is much too rigid for the sort of performance Rubinstein is going to give, and Mr. Skrowaczewski (of whom I had not previously heard) struck me as a little insensitive. Also his accompanying is unremarkable, the orchestra being a shade behind the soloist here and there. Quite a number of those easily-drowned counter-subjects are audible (though seldom those played by the bassoon) , and probably the orchestral side would have seemed quite good enough for most performances. But Rubinstein's is an exceptional performance. He spreads himself rather more than before, taking his time, brooding on phrases that take his fancy in that wonderful improvisatory way of his, and playing the whole work with such affection and style that you think it one of Chopin's loveliest inventions. Which perhaps it is. The slow movement is a marvel of sensitivity, and there is plenty of brilliance in the finale .

There have been many recordings of this concerto in recent years, but only one other is in anything approaching the Rubinstein class - the Pollini. This was a very remarkable record, the soloist only eighteen years old when it was made. In some ways it is a rather similar performance, very sensitive. with plenty of musical rubato. But then is a detectable difference in the rubato . Pollini's sounds very fresh and young, as might be expected. Rubinstein's is maturer, though I am not sure that that is an advantage in this very youthful concerto. It is hard to choose between the two. Certanly Pollini is better accompanied, and the orchestral opening is more expressively played in the HMV version. If you posses.either of these recordings, you will have some of the best Chopin playing of all time.

R.F., The Gramophone, March 1962

REVIEW Piano Concerto No. 2, original LP issue

Rubinstein last recorded this Chopin F minor concerto with Steinberg and the N .B.C., a disc which was issued in this country in July 1957 and withdrawn soon afterwards at the termination of the H.M.V./R.C.A. contract. It was the best available version of the work in its day, and the same can be said for Rubinstein's new recording. If I remember rightly, Steinberg phrased the orchestral tuttis with more loving care than Wallenstein, but there is plenty to be said for the orchestral side of the new disc. For one thing, a real attempt has been made to get a balance between piano and orchestra. In the second half of the first movement development someone seems to have lost heart, for the woodwind are totally inaudible from letter J right up to the recapitulation. But elsewhere counter-subjects come through well, and the bassoon solo at the end of the slow movement sounds most beautiful. The orchestral sound on the whole will be too dry for most tastes, and the piano quality is a bit tinny, especially in the mono version. In the stereo disc the wind, who presumably had their own microphone, have been superimposed on the 'cellos at the extreme right, a somewhat improbable place to find them, and there is here and there a lack of realism in the sound. But all discs of Chopin concertos seem to have their defects, and most of them have more defects than this one. What makes it outstanding is, of course, Rubinstein's performance. In the quick movements his playing has an almost slap-dash quality which is endearing and stems from his rhapsodic approach to the music. You listen to every bar, held by the wonderful piano writing, wonderful because Rubinstein makes it so. In the dramatic middle section of the slow movement he brings a tension to the music such as I have not heard before. The result is wonderfully exciting. This is a really superb account of this lovely music.

The concerto is just too long to go comfortably on one side without cutting, and the third movement is wisely relegated to side two. (Even so, eight bars of the final tutti of the first movement are cut. They may not be very good bars, but the music sounds worse without them than with.) As a fill up, Rubinstein plays the Andante spianato and Polonaise, of which only the polonaise has orchestral accompaniment (perfimctory even by Chopin's standards). The timps are sharp in the final chord, which is about all I noticed of the accompaniment. Rubinstein manages the poetic andante ravishingly, and in the polonaise is heroic and wayward by turns, making the music sound far better than it really is.

R.F., The Gramophone, March 1960