Ottorino Respighi - Piano Concerto in A minor; etc. (Konstantin Scherbakov)

Information

Composer: Ottorino Respighi

1. Piano Concerto in A minor
2. Toccata
3. Fantasia Slava

Konstantin Scherbakov, piano

Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra

Howard Griffiths, conductor

Date: 1995

Label: Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.553207

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Review

All these pieces are otherwise available in decent performances, but at this price how could anyone with the slightest weakness for Respighi hesitate? Scherbakov and Griffiths do a good deal more than dutifully go through the motions, the soloist in particular playing with delicacy and affection, grateful for the (quite frequent) opportunities to demonstrate how well he would play Liszt or Rachmaninov, but in the Toccata he is interested as well in Respighi's more characteristic modal vein; as a Russian, he demonstrates that this too, like so much in Respighi, was influenced by the time he spent in Russia. Russian soloist, English conductor and Slovak orchestra all enjoy the moment in the Fantasia slava where Respighi presents a morsel of Smetana in the evident belief that it's a Russian folk-dance, but the Concerto and the Fantasia, both very early Respighi, are not patronized in the slightest. The central slow section of the Concerto, indeed, achieves something like nobility, and although there is a risk of the pianism in this work seeming overblown and rhetorical, Scherbakov's fondness for Respighi's more fleet-footed manner doesn't let this happen often.

The Toccata is not so much an exercise in the neo-baroque, often though its dotted and florid figures promise it, more of an essay on how far one can be neo-baroque without giving up a post-Lisztian keyboard style and comfortable orchestral upholstery. But in a slow and florid central section, a rather melancholy aria that passes from the soloist to the oboe, to the strings and back again, there is a real quality of Bachian utterance translated not unrecognizably into a late romantic language (you may be momentarily reminded of Gerald Finzi). Scherbakov sounds touched by it, and obviously wants us to like it. Indeed these are likeable performances of music that needs that sort of help, but repays it. The recordings are more than serviceable, but each work is given only a single track.

-- Michael Oliver, Gramophone

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Ottorino Respighi (9 July 1879 – 18 April 1936) was an Italian composer and musicologist. He is best known for his orchestral music, particularly the three Roman tone poems: Fountains of Rome (Fontane di Roma), Pines of Rome (I pini di Roma), and Roman Festivals (Feste romane). His musicological interest in 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century music led him to compose pieces based on the music of these periods. Although Respighi was known primarily as composers of instrumental and orchestral music, he also wrote a number of operas, the most famous of which is La fiamma.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottorino_Respighi

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Konstantin Scherbakov (11 June 1963 in Barnaul, Siberia) is a Russian pianist. He was the winner of the first Rachmaninov Competition in 1983. Scherbakov has had a successful recording career for Naxos. Gramophone magazine has said that Scherbakov plays with "delicacy and affection", and the German Critics' Circle has twice awarded Scherbakov its top prize. Scherbakov has lived with his family in Zurich, Switzerland since 1992 and has been professor at the Zurich University of the Arts since 1998. Among his students is Yulianna Avdeeva, winner of the 2010 Chopin Competition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Scherbakov

http://www.scherbakov.ch/

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