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PIANISTS YOUNG, OLD AND HISTORIC
CD 2: Ian MUNRO (1963) / Dreams CD 3 Cypres CYP9616 This live recording of the young gladiators in combat at the Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition 2003 demonstrates the good health of piano teaching and learning at the highest level. There are some fine performances to be enjoyed - no editing or patching! Biographical details and track lists of the three CDs are on line at the Cypres website. I was vastly impressed by the German winner's Prokofiev (far the hardest and most challenging of his piano concertos) and it was interesting that one of the set pieces was by Ian Munro, well remembered in UK as 2nd prizewinner of the Leeds International Piano Competition (1978). The booklet characterises the 2003 winner fairly thus: A noteworthy feature of this welcome release is the quality of the orchestral accompaniments and their well balanced recording, without the piano unduly prominent as feared and which so often destroys concerto recordings on CD. Roberto Giordano's Op 110 is impressive and Jin Ju delighted me in the Mozart D minor concerto but, on the rest of the third disc, I was less captivated by the Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert playing and seriously wondered how long young pianists and piano competitions would be limited by reliance on the ubiquitous Steinway, which dominates the concert and recording world and is inclined to stultify imagination of sonic potentialities in classical and early 19 C music?
This came my way after a revelatory Mozart concert in which Olga Tverskaya played her own wonderful Brodman fortepiano. She includes two of Schubert's sonatas, one of them heard just before writing this in the third of the QE Competition CDs reviewed above, and it is frankly dull by comparison. Olga Tverskaya, a formidably equipped young pianist trained in Russia on the modern grand piano, is often asked how she could have adapted her playing to the fortepiano, its predecessor from another age. Her explanation is so important that I reproduce an excerpt here: It is a wonderful recording, deserving the attention of every aspiring concert pianist and competition adjudicator, and is another blow in my personal campaign in support of what many will consider an extreme opinion - "Performances on modern string and wind instruments, and on the ubiquitous Steinway grand, will soon come to seem anachronistic and belonging ’historically’ to the twentieth century" says Peter Grahame Woolf (review of Early Music Weekend at Greenwich). Whilst I wouldn't for a moment wish to suggest that these artists are anything less than amongst the finest of all Schubertians, one question does cross my mind - why is it still practically unknown (or even unthinkable) that all but a tiny few big international 'superstar' pianists would consider performing this (and other) music on the instruments that the composers knew and wrote for? Tverskaya in particular is most unusual in being a pianist of Russian training who has gravitated in this direction. The arguments that one often hears, that those who play old instruments are simply those who couldn't make it on 'real' pianos (rather like similar comments often made about those who focus upon contemporary music) won't wash any longer (if they ever did) - Staier's recording of D960 can, in my opinion, stand its own alongside the Schubert recordings of Schnabel, Yudina, Sofronitsky, Richter, Brendel, Pollini, Uchida or whoever. But I would like to have heard (or would like to hear, for those of them still alive) what any of them would have created when bringing their own very personal insights into play with an engagement with the different possibilities of the period instruments. IVAN MORAVEC PLAYS CHOPIN
There are always details to savour, or to question, in Moravec's phrasing but that adds to the feeling of liveliness. His recording of the Schumann & Brahms No 1 concertos on Dorian has been reviewed twice by Gramophone; with opposite preferences! I like them both - Dorian DOR90172. Here Moravec's distinguished, aristocratic playing, well recorded for Vox, gives me no call to complain and I recommend it to those whose shelves are not already groaning under the weight of Chopin CDs! Competitive repertoire; this one should hold its place in the catalogue for many years.
THE ART OF ALICIA DE LARROCHA
The seven CDs are in simple slip cases in a box, each with a photo from the stages of her long career. They have given us a great deal of pleasure. The full track list can be found on the Decca website and there are many samples of performances in this collection to be heard on line, though navigation to them is not as easy as might be. VLADO PERLEMUTER Debussy & Ravel
Vlado Perlemuter famously studied with Ravel and recorded all his piano music for Vox. He was rediscovered and championed in by William Glock and made many R3 broadcast recordings in his later prime, going on to give master classes and recitals until he was nearly 90; he died in 2002 at 98. These are treasurable, idiomatic performances which date from 1968/1970 to put alongside the many for Nimbus, including a 6-CD set NI 1764 recorded in 1974/84.
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QUEEN ELISABETH PIANO COMPETITION 2003
" - - Severin von Eckardstein. Maturity, stylistic plenitude and fullness of sound were combined in him with an indefinable air of culture, exempt of arrogance and show, resulting in performances that were anything but adventitious. We shall be listening again and again to what this young man was able to do under the very difficult conditions, as regards both length and intensity, of the toughest of international competitions. We can but be convinced that the discovery of a true Beethovenian, able to master both a contemporary score and to give such a performance of the Prokofiev Second, is unquestionably to be assigned to the Competition’s credit." 
Ivan Moravec's rare recitals in London are memorable events and this new CD includes works enjoyed recently at Queen Elizabeth Hall. He has exactly the right way with the not-quite-3/4 rhythm of the Mazurkas, and has chosen several of my favourites, as are the Fantaisie and Berceuse. 
Here is a marvellous compendium of the recordings in her extensive repertoire of this great veteran, now 80 and retired in the 2002-2003 season from concert giving (since 1929!) but active adjudicating etc - and who could be better equipped for that role? The prevailing impression of these recordings of 1970-83 is of just moderation and unshowy 'rightness'. Alicia de Larrocha leaves you in no doubt that she does not have to be regarded as only a specialist in Iberian music, although her performances of Albéniz, Falla etc are benchmark interpretations. My only reservation is that the sound is sometimes a little constricted and 'sanitised', though this is a minor quibble and should not put anyone off. 
Recordings from the BBC archives are now being released regularly with the BBC Music Magazine, and the combined package is excellent value.