Sergei Prokofiev
Piano Concerto No. 1-3

Martha Argerich, piano
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor



Samuel Barber
Orchestral Works and Concertos
Leonard Slatkin, Charles Munch



Rimsky-Korsakov
Evgeny Svetlanov


Beethoven
Symphony No.9
Piano Transcription by Franz Liszt
Konstantin Scherbakov, Piano



Kronos Caravan

This was an extraordinarily good idea on RCA France’s part – a canny repackaging of Samuel Barber at his best and most Romantic, with performances that, for the most part, could not be bettered and at an attractive price.

Charles Munch’s Adagio for Strings is nearly worth the price of this set by itself.  With a freshness and ardor in its phrasing and the naturalness of a conversation, the music feels as alive and vibrant as though it was being played live on the spot; and the lush warmth and immediacy of the sound easily belies the 1957 recording date.  With its welcome release from the vault, this is easily among the best Adagios on the market.

From Munch we move to Leonard Slatkin, who has a firm sense of the overall pulse in Barber’s music; he rivals Marin Alsop in not allowing drama to overshadow lyricism in the First Symphony but also keeps things moving tautly.  With Alsop, the tension threatens to slacken and allow the music to fall precipitously, most dangerously in the quieter moments.  With Slatkin there is no such concern – we take time to smell the flowers but know we’re not going to be abandoned in the meadow to find our own way home.  That security is a double-edged sword.  Part of the excitement in Alsop’s reading, much as in a live performance, is whether that thin line of tension is going to snap.  That sense of “How long can she really keep this going?” is part of what keeps us listening.  Slatkin, in comparison, is too safe – solid and enjoyable, but lacking that extra spark of impending peril that brings this piece to life.

Spark is exactly what John Browning brings to the Piano Concerto, but with a deeper, longer, more lingering burn than the sudden immolation you’d initially expect.  Browning owned this piece throughout his career – Barber wrote it for him, and no one has yet come close to his authority or understood it as fully.  Even if he is competing against his much younger self, what this performance lacks in sheer adrenaline compared to the première recording with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra is more than made up for in a nourishing chiaroscuro of intrigue and sultry seduction.

Browning and Slatkin pair off in the piano, four-hand version of Souvenirs, Barber’s witty romp that he likened to “a divertissement set in … the Palm Court of the Hotel Plaza in New York, the year about 1914, the year of the first tangos.”   Browning and Slatkin have both had a long association with this suite, which shows in their savoring of the bold but ever gaudy tone colors, period charm and vintage humor.  They not only get Barber’s joke but relish sharing it, making this music as fun to hear as it was for them to play.

The second disc begins with Charles Munch and the Bostonians’ ticking bomb of Medea’s Meditation that explodes in a furied, frenzied Dance of Vengeance.   From there we’re back to Slatkin, showcasing Kyoko Takezawa in an extremely charming Violin Concerto.  Like Browning in the Piano Concerto, Takezawa understates the overall thrust with a sighing, sweetly smiling beguilement and some surprises at the more explosive moments.  Like Munch and the Bostonians in the Adagio, everything feels totally intuitive, improvisatory and rapt, with Slatkin following his soloist with the utmost flexibility and sensitivity.  Move over, Stern and Bernstein – you have some serious competition!

I have never warmed to the Capricorn Concerto.  Stark, angular and serious, it is probably the closest Barber came to Bartók’s acerbic moodiness.  Though punctuated with sly and dryly humorous asides from solo flute, trumpet and English horn, along with some jazzy riffs in the strings, it remains an off-putting piece from a decade (the 1940s) that found the composer at odds with himself and the beginning of a general shift of musical trends away from the truths he held dear.  Slatkin and soloists Jacob Berg, Peter Bowman, Susan Slaughter give the piece their full commitment, and if any performance could convince me of this concerto’s true worth, it might just be this one.

The set ends with Slatkin and Steven Isserlis in a persuasive and impassioned Cello Concerto – the least known of Barber’s three concertos and, while a piece that never fully came together for the composer, one not deserving its relative neglect.  Wendy Warner, Marin Alsop and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra gamely hold their own on Naxos, with the spaciousness and allowance for drama to unfold on its own terms even while highlighting.  Isserlis and Slatkin are no less mindful of this work’s (and Barber’s overall) inherent songfulness, but with a more overtly outgoing attitude and tighter rein on Barber’s occasional tendency to wander, their performance is at least as approachable and perhaps more engaging.

Now, if only RCA’s American division would offer this domestically instead of keeping some of the full-price versions in circulation.

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