Rachmaninoff: The Piano Concertos and Paganini Rhapsody (CD Review)

by Ryan Ross

Yuja Wang, piano; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor. Deutsche Grammophon 486 4759 (2 CDs) 

It is a strange coincidence that as I have been listening to these Rachmaninoff discs, I just finished reading Samuel Lipman’s Music After Modernism (Basic Books, 1979). This book is a series of essays outlining the author’s thoughts about the Western classical tradition during what he saw as its twilight years. One of his arguments is that the lack of vital new repertoire adopted by performers in any enduring way sees them adding new interpretations of well-established favorites to an ever-growing backlog. One wonders what Lipman would have thought of the explosion of previously unrecorded repertoire and its champions from the 1980s up to the present, with the advent of the compact disc and then streaming. (Since he passed away in 1994, his experience of these developments would have been limited or non-existent.) But given the tone of his book, I have a feeling that Lipman would quickly point to the uninterrupted proliferation of standard repertoire recordings, and how relatively few of them measure up to the old favorites we perennially celebrate. 

 

This is what I kept thinking about as I took in these performances by Yuja Wang, Gustavo Dudamel, and a decidedly diminutive Los Angeles Philharmonic. Beyond the furtherance of careers involved, or perhaps special sympathies with the performers, on what basis can I recommend this product? Regretfully, the answer is “little.” Truthfully, most of that “little” goes to Wang’s piano technique. I agree with the buzz: she does fast and brilliant very well. Maybe too well. Because when I look for other reasons to praise her playing here, I struggle to find many. Even in the slower passages, where she ostensibly gets into the emotion and lyricism of the music, I often find that it feels like serving time until the next opportunity for technical brilliance. When one listens carefully to these passages, they harbor a certain metronomical core. It’s as if someone coached her on how to be expressive, and she’s imitating their example more than really exemplifying it. This is less of a problem in the more ostentatious works and moments; her First and ThirdConcerti are better than the rest. 

Her other performances here aren’t even really bad. It’s just that in such a saturated field, nothing quite measures up. When one can choose rapt, heartrending interpretations by Pennario, Richter, Horowitz, Ashkenazy, Graffman (her teacher!), and others (not to mention the composer’s own), why should one shell out full price for hers? Maybe she equals or outdoes most of them in terms of sheer technique, but if the tears, tenderness, colors, and beauty of this repertoire are important, the buyer has many better options.

 

Much as I am cool on Wang’s pianism beyond technique, she gets little help here from Dudamel and the LA Phil. I don’t know whether or not conductor and soloist made a prior agreement that the orchestra would go to great lengths not to upstage or obscure the piano, but its role in these performances is unacceptably meek. The problem is less severe in many of the tutti sections than it is in stretches when the orchestra accompanies the piano. Taking the Second Concerto as an example, the opening sounds particularly strange, with everyone but Wang trying hard to recede into the background. A thankfully present clarinet in the opening of the second movement bucks the trend before the orchestral muting resumes in the finale. 

The same issues trouble the Fourth Concerto’s quicker movements. But even where the tutti sections without piano are loud and clear, their special moments (notably in the climax of the Second Concerto’sFinale and the famous 18th variation of the Paganini Rhapsody) feel oddly routine. This is why I actually find Wang’s earlier recording of the Second Concerto with Claudio Abbado and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (DG 477 9308) to be the better choice. It’s more of the same Sonic-the-Hedgehog pianism, but at least we have a conductor who lets the orchestra play with suitable fullness. 

 Lest the reader think I am being too hard on Wang, I want to close with a constructive suggestion. I’ve seen her perform high-octane repertoire that requires edgy brilliance rather than lush Romantic sentiment, and I think she’s generally amazing with this music. Her Ligeti, Adams, and Kapustin, for example, are stunning. Moreover, these composers all prove that great (yes, great) piano compositions were still being composed in the closing decades of the twentieth century and beyond. If she were to concentrate even more on recording and championing them, so much the better. And, per Lipman’s prescription, the classical tradition itself would only gain health and longevity.