A SOVIET MASTER PIANIST REDISCOVERED

It was back in 2000 that I chanced upon a flawed but charismatic’ 1963 live (mono) recording of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto by the Soviet pianist Yakov Flier with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein. I had recently made my one and only trip to New York (so far!) which took in a visit to the Philharmonic’s head office, where I was offered the opportunity to audition something from the Orchestra’s archive that might otherwise prove difficult to locate.

Flier’s Rachmaninov was a real ear-opener – forceful and impassioned – and I was delighted to encounter it again in the context of Scribendum’s 15-cd ‘The Art of Yakov Flier’ (15 CDs, Scribendum  SC841, c£84.50) especially as this generous collection also contains a rather scrawny 1941 recording of the same work where a more fleet-fingered but equally engaging Flier joins forces with the Moscow Philharmonic under Boris Khaikin.

Other concerto recordings include a taut, boldly virtuosic stereo version of the Khachaturian under Kyrill Kondrashin (try the start of the third movement), a 1973 ‘live’ Beethoven C minor Concerto under Konstantin Ivanov that harbours a particularly beautiful account of the Largo, Ravel’s Concerto for the left hand with Yevgeny Svetlanov conducting from 1965 (the warlike central section blares relentlessly), and Liszt’s Second Concerto, a grandly conceived vision of the piece reminiscent of Claudio Arrau, recorded in 1948 under Nikolai Anosov with a lovely cello solo at 7:46. More notable cello playing arrives courtesy of the great Daniil Shafran for a 1956 recording of Rachmaninov’s Sonata, a performance at once emotionally charged and tonally seductive. Note in particular the way these consummate artists handle the close of the Andante (from 4:46 to the end).

Flier, a pupil of the legendary Konstantin Igumnov, was a contemporary of, and sometime rival to, Emil Gilels, with whom he duets (on two pianos) in Albéniz’s Navarra, another 1941 recording and the last track in the set. Equally effective – and far better recorded – is a sequence of Brahms Hungarian Dances where Flier plays alongside Igor Aptekarev (1910-1975), a Samiil Feinberg pupil who like Flier was a noted colourist, performances rich in spirit and temperament (try the Second Dance in D minor, or No. 17 in F sharp minor).

Other notable inclusions are a notably symphonic reading of Schumann’s Fantasie, five sensitively turned Songs without Words by Mendelssohn (I’d recommend sampling Nos. 2 or 46), Poetic Tone Pictures by Dvorák, and pieces by Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Liszt (the Second Ballade being especially memorable), Medtner, Debussy, Scriabin and much else. Certainly, if you’re as yet unfamiliar with this fine pianist’s playing, Scribendum’s admirable, decently transferred collection is as good a place as any to start exploring.