Music & Arts CD-1206, 62:57 (Distrib. Albany) ****:
Paul Badura-Skoda (b. 1928) was 27-years-old when he recorded the two Chopin concertos for Westminster (27 June – 11 July 1954), working with the touchy though reliable conductor Artur Rodzinski (1892-1958). Curiously, the Viennese tradition in Badura-Skoda pays elegant stylistic homage to Chopin, though we could argue that the performances are more of Hummel than the Polish salon. Badura-Skoda has his own ideas about rubato and phrasing; happily, the bravura filigree only benefits from the precious give-and-take in the lyrical episodes of the E Minor’s first movement Allegro maestoso risoluto. The Larghetto proves particularly expressive and forward-moving, the pianist’s bel canto shaping of the musical line idiomatically vocal, the pearly play rife with Scarlatti and Mozart as with Chopin’s innately plastic periods. The Rondo Badura-Skoda takes at a moderate clip at first, expressive without sacrificing the niceties of ornament and clean articulation. Solid work in the bassoons and tympani from Rodzinski’s orchestra. Badura-Skoda passes off Chopin’s roulades and tricky accents in the manner of an intimate series of etudes, here much closer to the Chopin who dazzled George Sand. Rarely does Badura-Skoda take a repeat in the same manner, always shading the rhythm or the harmony with subtle touches of diaphanous color. Formidable!
The F Minor Concerto projects an entirely darker, moodier cast than the E Minor. Though the piano figures emerge with robust vigor, they do not sparkle but muse rather gloomily, as though reflective on faded glories. Warm intimacy prevails in the solo passagework, suppleness united with poetic feeling. It was Furtwaengler who declared, “There is Bach, Beethoven–then there’s Chopin!” A ferocious tutti ensues, capped off by the solo bassoon. Badura-Skoda engages in lighter roulades between him and oboe and flute, the tempo accelerating, even manically driven like one of Chopin’s large concert krakowiaks. Piano and horn announce the recapitulation, the plucked strings like a glove around Badura-Skoda’s phrasings in stolen time. The bridge from Mozart to Chopin via Hummel seems abundantly clear, as Rodzinski urges the coda convulsively to an inevitable conclusion. Long, breathed spaces for the song-form Larghetto, interrupted only by the angry middle sections excursions into the heart’s dark places. Nice mid-range restoration in the keyboard sound, courtesy of Aaron Z. Snyder. There can be heard a definite Viennese lilt in the final Allegro vivace, a swagger to supplement the Polish zal that infuses the collaboration. Crisp articulation from the keyboard staccati and triplets, the strings’ col legno. By the concerto’s end, we might well speculate if Schnabel – had he inscribed Chopin – might have played these concertos with such elastic joie de vivre.
— Gary Lemco
