BRAHMS: Piano Concerto No 1 in D Minor, Op. 15; BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 27, No. 2 “Moonlight” – Misha Dichter, piano/Gewandhausorchester Leipzig/Kurt Masur – PentaTone SACD (RQR 4.0-channel) PTC 5186 124, 62:04 [Distrib. by Naxos] ****:
This June 1977 inscription has several assets to recommend it, the first of which derives from exemplary, idiomatic pianism from Misha Dichter (b. 1945), a musician long sympathetic to the Schumann-Brahms sensibility, my having been present at a remarkable Davidsbuendler Tanze he gave at SUNY Binghamton around 1974. I recall remarking to him at the time that RCA had not well-represented his piano tone on discs, and he responded by informing me he had just switched to Philips. The Polyhymnia RQR remastering process brings out all the cosmetic highlights of what had already been a superb production under Rainer Bluth. [The recording was not released in surround in the 70s due to the failure of that era’s various matrix quadraphonic technologies…Ed.]
The second quantum to be considered is the exemplary orchestral support Dichter receives from the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Kurt Masur (b. 1927). Their innate understanding of the dramatic and lyrically passionate gestures in the Concerto exert themselves in sundry displays of woodwind riffs, tympanic rumbles, and softly haloed strings that surround the wild ride of the first movement, which in surround sound, achieves a terrific peroration. Dichter’s slow, searching exploration of the Adagio movement establishes a bittersweet, flowing lied to which Masur’s violas, basses, and clarinet add an especial, crepuscular luster. The tempo does not drag; rather, Masur urges the orchestral tissue without undue histrionics, while Dichter’s ringing piano tone provides both aerial, limpid figures and polished, poetic authority to this “requiem” movement to Robert Schumann. Brilliant staccato articulation marks the opening of Dichter’s realization of the Rondo, non-legato that achieves a distinctly pearly character. The musical maturity each of the participants brings to this always-exciting score adds to the impression of colossal personalities engaged in synchronized deployment of aesthetic forces. A commercially-conceived performance that ranks among the best, and that means the versions by Rubinstein (and Reiner), Serkin (and Szell), and Arrau (and Haitink).
To play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata as an “encore” to the Brahms D Minor Concerto works, especially after one has heard the final pages from Dichter in the explosive coda. The fluid arpeggio, the moving triplets of the Beethoven first movement act as a spiritual balm to heal the Romantic tremors that still tear at us from Brahms. Intimacy and modesty unite in a tender, infinitely poetic realization of the Adagio sostenuto. Charming delicacy for the Allegretto, a brittle sonority reminiscent of the fortepiano; but the lash having been applied at the opening of the Presto reminds us just how modern Dichter’s instrument is. Liszt had called the Allegretto the “flower between two abysses.” A volcano erupts before us, what Coleridge calls “a savage place.” Dichter holds the various, dynamic and tumultuous elements together under a secure pair of hands, those same fingers that earned a Silver Medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition years ago.
–Gary Lemco
