Van Cliburn’s live 1958 Rachmaninov Third Concerto from Carnegie Hall makes its first appearance in RCA’s Living Stereo line. Its three-track incarnation gives a stronger sense of venue ambience over the boxy-sounding two-track mixdown most recently made available in Philips’ deleted Great Pianists line. Even so, unattractive aspects of John Pfeiffer’s closely miked production remain, such as unrealistically spotlit solo instruments. I also suspect that there was not much “after-the-fact” editing, given the tiny performance inaccuracies and ensemble glitches.
Cliburn’s patient, lyrical approach to the score provided a refreshing alternative to the fire-and-brimstone standard favored by pianists under Horowitz’s spell. At the same time, Cliburn’s huge hands most assuredly grasp the composer’s massive chords and serpentine textures. I’m not certain if this was the first commercial Rachmaninov Third recording to dispense with the composer’s “traditional” cuts (save for the tiny incision of a superfluous repeated figure in the first-movement cadenza), but it was the first to incorporate the heavier, chord-based first-movement cadenza that most pianists now favor (wrongly, to my mind).
Kyrill Kondrashin’s firm, steadfast conducting transcends the Symphony of the Air’s spottier aspects (the brass, for instance) in the Rachmaninov, but I wish Fritz Reiner’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra had been on hand. And I also wish that Cliburn’s Chicago recording of the Prokofiev Third had been led by Kondrashin. Compare his pointed, colorful support of Byron Janis on Mercury to the workaday professionalism with which Walter Hendl and the Chicagoans support–yet hardly inspire–Cliburn, and you’ll hear why I consider this performance very good but not in the class of Janis/Kondrashin, Katchen/Kertesz, Graffman/Szell, and Argerich/Abbado. Sonically speaking, of course, its present three-track incarnation is beyond cavil.
