Here we have the third and final volume of Noel Mewton-Wood’s survey of Tchaikovsky’s works for piano and orchestra, recorded in the early 1950s with Walter Goehr. The works on this issue were recorded about a year before Mewton-Wood’s untimely death at just 31.
Mewton-Wood’s terrific technique and power are given full rein in the Third Piano Concerto, a work with which Tchaikovsky had some difficulties. Conceived as a Symphony in E flat first mentioned in 1892, the material was reworked into the form of a piano concerto. By the time of his death, only the first movement existed with orchestration, the other two movements in short score, movements of which the composer had a low opinion and discarded. The work was given its first performance by Taneyev in 1895. Not on the scale of the first two concertos, it still has barnstorming moments, none more so than the trepak final which Mewton-Wood brings off very well.
The sketches used for this concerto were revisited by Semyon Bogatryryev and put together to form a four-movement symphony of some 40 minutes duration and published as Tchaikovsky’s Seventh Symphony in 1957. It has never gained enough following to be considered as part of the composer’s cycle and is regarded as something of a curiosity, despite Eugene Ormandy’s recording.
The Concert Fantasia is an earlier work, dating from 1885, and like the Third concerto, premiered by Taneyev. In two movements, the first bubbles and sparkles away, the second, Contrastes, has material for slow movements and a brash finale. The piano has long sections of unaccompanied passages, the contrasts of which Mewton-Wood points very well.
Followers of Mewton-Wood’s career will want to hear this very fine transfer from Pristine Audio, available in straight mono or with ambient stereo – the latter particularly impressive using headphones. The Winterthur Orchestra will not be mistaken for orchestras from Berlin, Boston, London or Vienna and if some of the playing is rough and ready, Mewton-Wood’s contribution at the keyboard more than compensates!
–Peter Joelson
