When it comes to piano concertos, no two composers wrote more compatible concertos than Grieg and Schumann. Both are in A minor, both are in three movements, and both are ecstatically lyric, tenderly romantic, and amazingly virtuosic. And both fit very comfortably together as a recorded double bill, a coupling that has attracted some of the greatest pianists of the postwar years: Claudio Arrau with Colin Davis and the Boston Symphony, Leon Fleisher with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, Walter Gieseking with Wilhelm Furtwängler and the Berlin Philharmonic, Sviatoslav Richter with Lovro von Matacic and the Monte Carlo National Opera Orchestra, and this recording by Stephen Kovacevich with Colin Davis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Recently signed to Philips when these recordings were made in 1970 and 1971, American Stephen Kovacevich was at the first peak as a pianist. At 30, his technique was astonishingly clean and astoundingly virtuosic, his tone was unbelievably clear and incredibly colorful, his interpretations were staggeringly dispassionate and yet somehow still stunningly passionate. Here, Kovacevich plays the Grieg with Apollonian detachment and Dionysian advocacy and the Schumann with Popish lucidity and Keatsian intensity. Davis, always the most amiable of accompanists, follows Kovacevich and leads the BBC with exemplary elegance, and Philips, always the classical label with the finest piano sounds, graces Kovacevich with ideal acoustics. Is this the best recording of the Grieg and Schumann concertos ever made? Maybe yes, maybe no -- but it is certainly one of the handful of best recordings of the works ever made.
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