It’s scarcely believable that these are performances by a professional-caliber musician of international renown, but Valéry Afanassiev sounds clueless in Beethoven’s piano concertos. Afanassiev’s tempos are so slow, and his playing so heavy and over-articulated (he also seems to have forgotten how to balance a chord) that you wonder if he just learned this music for these performances. But surely this is not the case, which leaves me to conclude that Afanassiev has fallen prey to the same disease of self-indulgence that afflicts a number of today’s star solo performers. And he’s not getting any corrective from conductor Hubert Soudant, who seems all too happy to oblige the pianist’s mannerisms. Listen to the broken phrasing of Concerto No. 4’s finale, where Afanassiev’s exaggerated syncopation makes Beethoven’s main theme sound like music for a conga line.
Concertos 1 & 2 are at the other extreme. Both first movements are fatally devoid of rhythmic energy, a pale reflection of Beethoven, while Afanassiev’s stiff, heavy-handed manner makes both finales sound like unpleasant chores. The recording renders Afanassiev’s piano with a clattery harshness while obscuring the Mozarteum Orchestra’s already timid, decidedly un-Beethovenian sound. Basically, this disc has no right to exist.
