This isn't your Aunt Victoria's
Rachmaninov. Oh my, no. As recorded by the late
Moura Lympany in the early '50s, this is full-bodied, hot-blooded
Rachmaninov,
Rachmaninov so hot that it'll burn the grill off your speakers and singe the hair on your forearm.
Moura Lympany, an English pianist with more energy and enthusiasm than reserve and restraint, tears into
Rachmaninov's Preludes with the kind of bravura technique more commonly associated with postwar American pianists than with pre-war English pianists. But
Lympany has a technique to rival her American contemporaries and a temperament that few of her fellow Brits could match. While some listeners might prefer a more brooding approach to
Rachmaninov the melancholic,
Lympany's unashamed aplomb and reckless panache makes a compelling case for
Rachmaninov the virtuoso. In her recording of
Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto with
Anthony Collins conducting the New Symphony Orchestra of London,
Lympany does not slight the sensuality of the work's central Intermezzo, but she pours on the gas to set the closing Alle breve on fire. In her recording of
Khachaturian's Piano Concerto with
Anatole Fistoulari conducting the
London Philharmonic,
Lympany -- who gave the work its English premiere -- plays the work with such infectious gusto that even the work's long stretches of banality, bathos, and bombast sound convincing. Robert Culshaw's superb production for Decca, if somewhat dated, remains warm and honest and real. Lovers of that rare semi-musical instrument the Flexitone will have to be sure to hear its soulful solo in the slow movement of the
Khachaturian Concerto.