In his liner notes, Emanuel Ax mentions that he first heard the Brahms B-flat Concerto with Artur Rubinstein and Josef Krips on RCA LP; curiously, Rubinstein made a superior version earlier, with the same Boston Symphony (and Charles Munch) with whom Ax collaborates for his 1997 performance. The 2-disc set is a compilation of Ax’s performing Brahms, 1983 to 1997, at various venues in America, England, and Germany.
The B-flat Concerto allows conductor Bernard Haitink a more expansive persona than his usually literalist music-making demonstrates, although his penchant for textural clarity remains unabated. For the dreamy Andante, cellist Jules Eskin takes the obligatory cello part. The D Minor Allegro appassionato projects some of that Apollo/Dionysus fervor which the classic Horowitz/Toscanini inscription did, only the dazzling sparks enjoy better sound. Eskin and Ax pair up for a suave, ingratiating Andante, and why producers did not immediately record them in the two Brahms Cello Sonatas is a mystery to me. The last movement – playful, passionate, mercurial, moves lithely and dexterously to its preconceived end.
Ax recorded the Op. 117 in Henry Wood Hall, London (October 17-18, 1989). The E-flat Major, with its ballad-like declamations, combines a simple melodic line with thick harmonization. Ax applies a carillon effect gracefully. Rainy-day music for the B-flat Minor, a favorite of Rubinstein and played by Ax with restrained fervor. A postwar, post-apocalyptic desolation haunts the C-sharp Minor’s insistent, resignedly melancholy. The middle section tries to convince itself that the sun still shines. With a truly thrilling tympani roll and anguished violins, James Levine opens up a demonic D Minor Piano Concerto recorded 5 July 1983 in Chicago, where Ax’s idol Artur Rubinstein had likewise recorded this same concerto with Fritz Reiner. Ax provides an interpretation both introspective and dynamically hefty, often competing with the orchestra for sonic dominance. Excellent trumpet work from the CSO brass, along with the fateful French horn call that tries to bring the agonized persona of this Maestoso movement some consolation in Nature. The first period ends, and Ax launches us into a symphonic maelstrom that ends with a parodic waltz. That idyll is short-lived, and like Dante, we again descend into the depths. Strings, tympani, and piano reverberate enough to shake your audiophile space’s foundations. Ax plays the polyphonic passages in Brahms with Bach-like exactitude, providing a classical poise to the romantic pathos. The stormy, extended coda rages and spits, a titanic convulsion.
A drawn-out Adagio, shades of Max Reger, provides temporary shelter from the storm. The groping quality of the music’s evolution may remind connoisseurs of the classic Gould/Bernstein collaboration, which no longer seems so slow in comparison to modern performances. Modeled after the Beethoven C Minor Concerto, the Rondo by Brahms opens with a roar, syncopations flying. The CSO horn section is in fine fettle, the tympani and oboe parts pointed. Big, sweeping gestures for the secondary, melodic theme. Tip of the bow for the violin entries of the fugato. Nice pizzicati in the strings as the piano moves us ineluctably through trilled scales to the final series of perorations. Terrific octaves from Ax, then the big trill over horn punctuations, and a show-stopper coda of real power.
The Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79 (rec. Berlin 19-21 April 1991) might also be in homage to Artur Rubinstein as well Brahms, since the master pianist had been linked to the composer through Joachim. Ax plays the B Minor more non-legato than did Rubinstein; the detached, demure quality of the pearly play has something of Gieseking in it. The sudden paroxysms of energy testify to a tormented soul trapped by a disposition to order his emotions in sonata-form. The G Minor maintains a fine balance between girth and speed, not so fast as to break the big lines, nor so monolithic as to bloat the drama. Ax performs the Op. 119 pieces on a Hamburg Steinway D (13-15 June 1995) in Richardson Auditorium, Princeton University. His idol Rubinstein did perform Op. 119 partially, never having inscribed the opening B Minor Intermezzo. Ax gives the E-flat Rhapsody both an epic and whimsical character. The B Minor becomes a delicate tracery of pre-Debussy affects, a song we that could accompany Poe’s “To Helen.” The E Minor is a water-piece under Ax: nervous, nostalgic, a moment of “old bachelor music” – rapt in tender, disturbed recollection. The C Major proves a bit of erotic dalliance, similar to the scherzino in the D Minor Violin Sonata.
— Gary Lemco
