BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor; TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor – Mark Hambourg, piano/London Symphony Orchestra /Malcolm Sargent (Beethoven)/ Royal Albert Hall Orchestra/Landon Ronald (Tchaikovsky) – Pristine Audio

by | May 26, 2010 | Classical Reissue Reviews | 0 comments

BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37; TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, OP. 23 – Mark Hambourg, piano/London Symphony Orchestra /Malcolm Sargent (Beethoven)/ Royal Albert Hall Orchestra/Landon Ronald (Tchaikovsky)

Pristine Audio PASC 223, 63:28 (FLAC download or CD-R available) [www.pristineclassical.com] ****:


Mark Hambourg (1879-1960) has faded into relative oblivion, despite his having at one time dominated the musical scene in Britain after he and his family emigrated from Tsarist Russia. Hambourg stopped cutting commercial discs after 1935. Brought to the attention of Paderewski, Hambourg went on to study with Leschetitzky in Vienna who purified and refined his sound. These transcriptions of shellacs made in Kingsway Hall, London give us the only concerto recordings Hambourg inscribed, the Beethoven C Minor (13-14 November 1929) and the Tchaikovsky First Concerto (28 September 1926), the concerto’s first electrical recording and never prior-issued on LP or CD. The transfers by Mark Obert-Thorn are relatively quiet, given the noisy surface quality of the originals.

What we glean from the Beethoven is a rather willful, Romantic manner of execution, often disregarding Beethoven’s explicit tempo and dynamic markings and then interpolating–in the cadenza–all sorts of playful and improvisational asides, curlicues, and repeated notes. The slowings-down and speedings-up at random passages seem, if not frivolous, at the very least matters of artistic license few contemporary artists would dare. Still, Hambourg can project a lovely tone and shades of nuance when he wishes, and his “vocal” palette elicits enough pearly play to justify Busoni’s contention that in the early part of the 20th Century, Hambourg was the greatest active talent of his time. The case for intellectual and digital refinement appears in the Largo movement, which holds the plastic line in fine balance. The right hand fioritura and trills prove elegant and clearly articulate. The opening of the last movement suffers a bit of dry acoustic, but the tonal and dynamic refinement shines through. The delicacy of performance rather takes us aback, its fluid lightness almost suggestive of the last movement of the Grieg Concerto rather than of Beethoven. Rocket like flurries mark the last flourish to the coda, scintillating and brilliant in their ravishing surface energy.

Obert-Thorn admits in his liner notes that the first side of the Tchaikovsky Concerto needed a new take, given its distant sonic perspective; I find the piano sound muddy and unfocused. Hambourg likely packed some devastating double octaves, but they are mystified by the primitive technology, which also clouds his bass. Ronald himself indulges in some old-world portamento and slides, but the massive shape of the first movement remains firm. That Hambourg commanded a poetic sensibility comes through in the lyrical sections of movement, and his rapid passagework attests to a striking digital finesse. Hambourg does not shy away from some demonic fioritura when the impulse grabs him; he then segues into ravishing light touches that well anticipate the more monolithic contrasts effected by Sviatoslav Richter. The cadenza has Hambourg applying some high-octave interpolations that are pure poetic license. The second movement moves with a silken poise appropriate to any age of pianism, the waltz-sequence taking on a dreamy charm in the manner of a polichinelle from one of the composer’s ballets. The last movement canters rather than thunders, opening moderato, with the “con fuoco” gathering itself incrementally. When Hambourg does accelerate through Ronald’s slides, he demonstrates broad, sweeping gestures, a sylvan assurance that can easily explode with obsessive force. The last pages might have been played by the young Horowitz, so tempestuous are the upward scales to the coda, which resounds with a Russian verve all its own. Quite a rare ride, a tour de force on several levels despite the limits of the early sound technology.

–Gary Lemco

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