A Record, a Recital, a Recorded Recital

This year Gary Graffman celebrates the 25th anniversary of his debut as a recitalist. One of the ceremonial gestures is the issue of an all-Chopin disc as played by Graffman (Columbia, M31934, Graffman Plays Chopin—ingenious title!). The program is of some of Chopin’s finest works that somehow have escaped the chestnut bin: the Andante Spianato k.t.l., the G minor Ballade, the B-flat minor Scherzo, a couple of Preludes, a couple of Nocturnes. Graffman plays everything with sky-blue clarity and with perfect loyalty to the written notation. Forty thousand pianists can do the same. What places him among the chosen few is his ability to call on extraordinary power and expressiveness when things start popping. It’s hard to tell whether some of those octaves in the left hand are his or the studio engineer’s, they come crashing forward with such brazen gongs. Authoritative, straightforward, superbly vigorous and controlled playing. It stands that toughest test: You can hear it again and again without being alienated by mannerisms or disappointed in the climaxes. It’s a good recording to have around—a good sound to have in your ears—when you’re trying to evaluate some other pianist. If he doesn’t come up to Graffman, he’s second-rate. If he’s better than Graffman, he must be 1) Hoffman, 2) Rachmaninoff, 3) Rubenstein, or someone in that transcendental class, someone maybe on the order of . . .

Alicia de Larrocha. I have seen her many times in recital now and studied her recordings repeatedly. No doubt, now: She is all alone, at the very top. Perhaps the finest pianist in history. Last month she did the Albeniz Iberia at Carnegie Hall—an achievement dared by one or two pianists every quarter-century. The hall was filled with bravos before she sat down to the piano. The rest of the afternoon went by in a flash while the little lady made perfect music. A friend of mine, who had been an unbeliever (“I don’t like Spanish music”), came to me at intermission and admitted that a genius was at work. The particular thing I noted was that he praised her for her “coloristic” playing. Remarkable, because he was sitting in the worst seat in the hall for that kind of reception—first balcony, extreme left, ninety degrees away from the primary sonic travel. How does she fill every last cranny of the hall with those subtle shadings, all worked up in the midst of storms of notes, figurations, rhythmic gaieties? And she never seems to need a deep breath, never changes expression, simply sits there, calmly and very intently studying her hands, like a lady doing a bit of tatting for a favorite niece.

WR

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William F. Rickenbacker

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This year Gary Graffman celebrates the 25th anniversary of his debut as a recitalist. One of the ceremonial gestures is the issue of an all-Chopin disc as played by Graffman (Columbia, M31934, Graffman Plays Chopin—ingenious title!). The program is of some of Chopin’s finest works that somehow have escaped the chestnut bin: the Andante Spianato k.t.l., the G minor Ballade, the B-flat minor Scherzo, a couple of Preludes, a couple of Nocturnes. Graffman plays everything with sky-blue clarity and with perfect loyalty to the written notation. Forty thousand pianists can do the same. What places him among the chosen few is his ability to call on extraordinary power and expressiveness when things start popping. It’s hard to tell whether some of those octaves in the left hand are his or the studio engineer’s, they come crashing forward with such brazen gongs. Authoritative, straightforward, superbly vigorous and controlled playing. It stands that toughest test: You can hear it again and again without being alienated by mannerisms or disappointed in the climaxes. It’s a good recording to have around—a good sound to have in your ears—when you’re trying to evaluate some other pianist. If he doesn’t come up to Graffman, he’s second-rate. If he’s better than Graffman, he must be 1) Hoffman, 2) Rachmaninoff, 3) Rubenstein, or someone in that transcendental class, someone maybe on the order of . . .

Alicia de Larrocha. I have seen her many times in recital now and studied her recordings repeatedly. No doubt, now: She is all alone, at the very top. Perhaps the finest pianist in history. Last month she did the Albeniz Iberia at Carnegie Hall—an achievement dared by one or two pianists every quarter-century. The hall was filled with bravos before she sat down to the piano. The rest of the afternoon went by in a flash while the little lady made perfect music. A friend of mine, who had been an unbeliever (“I don’t like Spanish music”), came to me at intermission and admitted that a genius was at work. The particular thing I noted was that he praised her for her “coloristic” playing. Remarkable, because he was sitting in the worst seat in the hall for that kind of reception—first balcony, extreme left, ninety degrees away from the primary sonic travel. How does she fill every last cranny of the hall with those subtle shadings, all worked up in the midst of storms of notes, figurations, rhythmic gaieties? And she never seems to need a deep breath, never changes expression, simply sits there, calmly and very intently studying her hands, like a lady doing a bit of tatting for a favorite niece.