Nikolai Medtner’s three piano concertos, like those of his close friend and countryman Sergei Rachmaninov, call upon soloist and orchestra to be equal partners rather than virtuoso pianist and accompanist. For this reason, the cycle recorded in 1991 by pianist Geoffrey Tozer and the London Philharmonic with Neemi Järvi conducting continues to be your best overall choice, especially since Chandos now reissues it at budget price. Tozer’s full-bodied sonority, long-lined instincts, and marvelously assured fingers favorably compare to Geoffrey Douglas Madge’s heavier, more emphatic traversals, although the litheness and flexibility distinguishing the aged Medtner’s keyboard prowess remains unique.
However, I wouldn’t want to be without Hyperion’s edition of the Second and Third Concertos. While the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra doesn’t quite match its London colleagues’ dynamic heft and pulsating strings, pianist Nikolai Demidenko takes the composer’s frequent expressive and articulation directives closer to heart, and with more volatile, heated results all around. Tozer’s excellent, insightful performance of the Op. 27 Sonate-Ballade (previously reissued in Chandos’ complete Medtner Sonata boxed set) fills out Disc 2 and matches Marc-André Hamelin’s staggering proficiency with a wider degree of harmonic inflection. To sum up, buy Tozer/Chandos for the music, but for the pianism, keep Demidenko/Hyperion in mind.
