OT: New Grimaud Emperor on DG

[akiralx]

If you're looking for a fiery Emperor Concerto, I recommend the new DG issue with Helene Grimaud and the Dresden Staatskapelle under Jurowski.  Very vividly recorded, and an exciting performance with really powerful playing from the soloist, and the orchestra as well.  But there is an improvisatory feeling to the slow movement as well to balance the outer movements.  I like this a lot after listening three times in the last couple of days.

The coupled No. 28 Sonata op 101 is also very good, slightly faster than Uchida's recent one and with beautiful playing in the adagio and allegro sections of the last movement.

Comes with a bonus 'behind the scenes' DVD which I haven't seen yet.

[barry guerrero]

The new DG Beethoven violin concerto with Vedim Rapin/Vienna Phil./Riccardo Muti sounds real good as well. Rapin has a gorgeous tone, and he plays the Kreisler cadenza - which I like. It's nice to see DG coming up with some good new recordings, even if it is the same old rep., for the most part. I'm just hoping that their upcoming Boulez M8 has a half-way decent organ, and fairly audible tam-tam smashes at the end. DG seems to have bad luck with orchestral recordings that require an organ.

Anyway, I've often times felt that Beethoven got things just backwards: the finale to the "Emporer" concerto sounds as though it might work better on the violin, while the finale to the violin concerto sounds quite pianistic to me. Just listening to the free snippets from DG, Grimaud takes the finale to the "Emperor" just a tad faster than usual. I like that, as it often times sounds so pompous. On the whole, I really prefer the fourth concerto.

Barry

[akiralx]

Yep I'm looking forward to the Repin/Muti (horrible cover though).  I'm hoping it's not going to be a slow performance like Vengerov's (it appears not from the video on amazon).  Could you post the timings if you have them?

Actually Grimaud's CD of the Fourth is very good as well, if not quite as fine in my view as the Fleisher/Szell.