RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor — Op. 1; Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op.
43
Mikhail Pletnev, piano
Philharmonia Orchestra/Libor Pešek
Virgin Classics 7243 5 61976 2 [50:39]
Recorded November 1987, St. Augustine’s Church, Kilburn
This reissue from 1987 catches Pletnev before his conducting career consumed him—when he was still primarily a pianist of formidable intelligence and occasionally maddening refinement. The pairing makes sense, though not the usual sense: these aren’t the inevitable twins of the Second and Third Concertos, but rather the First (substantially revised in 1917, remember, so hardly the student work its opus number suggests) alongside the Rhapsody, that brilliant late compression of everything Rachmaninov learned about variation form and orchestral color.
The engineering holds up remarkably well. St. Augustine’s in Kilburn always had that particular warmth—not the clinical brightness of later digital — venues, but a bloom around the strings that serves this music without obscuring it.
You hear the woodwind solos with real presence, the way the clarinet emerges in the Rhapsody‘s eighteenth variation with that peculiar woody darkness. Pletnev’s approach to the First Concerto is… well, patrician isn’t quite the word, but there’s a refusal here to wallow.
The opening cadenza—that enormous, improbable gesture Rachmaninov asks of the soloist—arrives with considerable grandeur but without the volcanic rhetoric Ashkenazy brings to his Decca production. And yes, Ashkenazy remains the benchmark here, his rhythmic bite more pronounced, his sense of the music’s underlying propulsion more visceral. But Pletnev finds something else: a kind of architectural clarity in the first — movement’s sprawling form, a sense of the music’s bones beneath all that gorgeous upholstery.
The slow movement shows Pletnev at his most characteristic. He shapes phrases with an almost vocal flexibility—the rubato feels inevitable rather than imposed, as if the music itself were breathing. Listen to how he tapers the ends of phrases, that slight ritardando before the orchestra re-enters.
Some will find it mannered. I find it deeply musical, though I grant the point is debatable. Pešek proves an ideal collaborator, never bulldozing, always listening.
The Philharmonia responds with playing of considerable refinement—the strings in particular have that silken quality the company could still summon in the late ’80s, before personnel changes altered its character somewhat. The "finale" builds to genuinely exciting climaxes without the last ounce of abandon, but then these performers clearly aren’t after that kind of excitement. The Rhapsody works even better.
Here Pletnev’s clarity of articulation serves the music’s episodic structure brilliantly—each variation emerges distinct, yet the long line never fragments. The famous eighteenth variation (that melody everyone knows, even if they claim not to like classical music) unfolds with touching simplicity, no cheap sentiment, just the tune and its harmonies allowed to work their magic. The Dies Irae transformations have real wit—Pletnev clearly relishes Rachmaninov’s ingenuity without underlining it too heavily.
What’s most impressive is how Pletnev and Pešek maintain momentum through the work’s twenty-four variations. The transitions feel organic, the accelerations and relaxations of tempo seem composed into the score rather than imposed upon it. By the time we reach the final prestissimo variations, the performers have earned their triumph—though again, they underplay it slightly, ending with a kind of elegant dismissal rather than a grand peroration.
The closing gesture—that little rallentando before the final chords—will strike some listeners as an affectation. Perhaps it is. But it also feels like these musicians saying farewell to music they’ve clearly lived with, thought about, understood from the inside.
This isn’t a desert island disc, not quite. Ashkenazy’s intensity in the First Concerto remains unmatched, and for the Rhapsody there are more red-blooded accounts (Argerich, obviously, though her coupling is less useful). But Pletnev’s intelligence and Pešek’s sensitivity make this a realization to return to, one that reveals more with repeated listening.
At midprice, it’s an easy recommendation for anyone who wants to hear this music played with brains as well as heart—and who doesn’t mind that the heart, in this case, beats with aristocratic rather than peasant blood. Recommended
