This excellent album of Tchaikovsky’s seldom heard piano music plays very well to the SACD sound spectrum. Unlike a Brahms recording recently reviewed of this same company, the piano sound here takes full advantage of the surround system to give us a regal and bountifully bold take on the piano. And it could not have happened to a better composer; though the Op. 37 is one of the most played of the composer’s over 100 piano pieces, even it remains stealthy and rather esoteric in the minds of the most seasoned listeners.
This release should redress this problem somewhat, though in all honesty it must be admitted that Tchaikovsky’s piano music, despite the effusive protestations of the excellent notes to this release, really isn’t worth hearing all that much. He composed a lot of it for amateur consumption, and even the Seasons was intended for a subscription magazine and hardly approaches the pinnacle of piano technique. But his gift for melody remains, and that is why the music is heard, albeit infrequently. This is a terrific Seasons, one that will hold up over time, and sounds spectacular. Is it as good as the recent divided releases of Christoph Eschenbach on Ondine (parts 1-6 coupled with the fifth symphony and 7-12 with the fourth)? I have to admit, no, it is not. Eschenbach brings a masterly authority to this music, and plays the poet more successfully than Lev Vinocour does here. But Ondine, having made the absolutely correct decision to record theses pieces, reverses itself in the profoundly stupid idea of dividing them up, thereby implicitly denigrating the works to the mere parlor-schlock that many people think of them to begin with. So here at least, and only slightly below the infectious enthusiasm of Eschenbach, is a recording that will probably be my first choice when I want to hear this music.
The other items are very interesting also. The Polonaise is of course the Act III opener for his opera Eugene Onegin, and in the arrangement that was made by Franz Liszt. There are three songs from the Op. 16 Six Songs, and the Perpetuum mobile brings us closer to the virtuoso realm, while the Doumka establishes us fully in that realm. While I don’t for a moment think a comprehensive survey of Tchaikovsky’s piano music is needed, it would be nice if MDG would give us the Op. 39 Album for the Young and a few other pieces on another release. In the meanwhile, nice job to all concerned.
— Steven Ritter
[This is one of many “2+2+2” releases from MD&G on both SACD and DVD-A. They feel that for music in surround the center and subwoofer channels are not important, and instead they use those two channels for left and right height mics/speakers high above the front left and right speakers. The signals are compatible in standard 5.1 playback. We will shortly be featuring some feature review articles covering the 2+2+2 system and most of the discs using this alternative approach – which works well but takes some effort to set up…Ed.]
