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Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No.3/Sonata No.2 | 
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| Creators: Sergey Rachmaninov, Eugene Ormandy, New York Philharmonic, Vladimir Horowitz
Label: RCA Victor Europe
Category: Music
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $4.50
You Save: $10.48 (70%)
New (16) Used (7) from $4.49
Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 53283
Format: Enhanced, Original Recording Remastered, Import
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 090266368129
EAN: 0090266368129
ASIN: B00004TCPJ
Release Date: June 6, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | No. 1, Allegro ma non tanto | | • | No. 2, Intermezzo: Adagio - attaca subito | | • | No. 3, Finale: Alla breve | | • | I. Allegro Agitato | | • | II. Non Allegro - Lento | | • | III. Allegro Molto |
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| Customer Reviews:
flawed recording / classic music December 11, 2007
Wyote
Even the positive reviewers of this recording admit its flaws. I don't mind Horowitz's playing, though you will enjoy comparing this recording to any more recent one. The background noise, however, from shuffling feet to the obligatory coughs, is excessive. I also think something was strange about the piano's microphone, perhaps it was placed improperly or something, because it just doesn't sound right. If I had to guess, it sounds like the mic is inside the wood, near the low keys.
However, I enjoy listening to it all the same. I love Rachmaninoff's music in general, and I don't think the flaws of this recording are conclusively damning.
One thing I would say is, you should definitely feel free to shop around and get another recording.
But the main thing I would say, and I would emphasize it strongly: unless you really want to hear Rachmaninoff's 3rd Concerto and 2nd Sonata, then by all means listen to Tchaikovsky: Concerto No. 1/Rachmaninoff: Concerto No. 2 first. Both pieces of music are beautiful, and everyone should listen to Rachmaninoff's incredibly beautiful 2nd Concerto about five times for every time they listen to the 3rd.
Just my opinion--but then, I'm sure I'm right. You're welcome to disagree, but only after you've listened to Rachmaninoff's 2nd Concerto!
 great Rach 3 March 24, 2007
Robert B. Mckittrick Jr. (New Jersey, USA)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
It took a while to come, but it came from Germany. I had an old cassette of this performance (copied from WQXR radio).
 A reactionary recording June 5, 2006
Willy M. (Independence, MO)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Horowitz, like anyone with a great musical mind, was a keen observer of performance trends. Though he had long periods where he withdrew from the concert stage, he always kept listening to music. He was a record collector and listened frequently to other pianists performances. He must have become somewhat disheartened at the many recordings that were produced throughout the sixties and seventies. With the ability to edit and re-edit, most performances became plain vanilla offerings, devoid of any original spark or personality. Sadly, in my opinion this trend continues to the present day.
Horowitz was always able to infuse anything he played with his larger than life personality. However, I feel that during the late seventies and early eighties he was consumed with the idea that he was "the last romantic". In earlier performances, he always infused his interpretations with interesting nuances and twists of a phrase. However, when this particular recording was produced these nuances and twists became all important. His playing became so distorted and exagerated that the music doesn't speak for itself any longer. This performance is a giant ego trip for the pianist as Ormandy tries his best to stay out of the way. I agree with many of the other reviewers here; the Horowitz/Reiner performance of the 50's is a far, far better performance and in fact sounds the most mature of any of his Rach. 3's. I also love the youthful exuberance of the Horowitz/Coates recording.
His worst Rach 3 on record August 31, 2005
John Grabowski (USA)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
People who say this is THE BEST Rachmaninoff 3 (seems like every Rachmaninoff 3 is the best Rachmaninoff 3) probably have heard very few others. And no, it's not true that Rachy himself stopped playing the concerto after hearing VH play it in 1928. Rachmaninoff had a long and successful solo career that included many performances of this work through the 1930s and 40s...this can easily be looked up. In fact, he tired of playing it, but the public and his agents pretty much forced it on him. His own recording, made in 1939, is superb, though Horowitz's first, made in 1930 with Coates and the LSO (EMI, sadly out of print) is far better--one of the very best, in fact.
This recording, however, is acoustically harsh and brittle, fast, unfelt, and nervous. Ormandy leads a New York Philharmonic that is really not interested in responding at all (they can frequently be this way to guest conductors). With so many recordings crowding the field, I can't understand why this one is still around, except that perhaps many people are "sucked in" by the "event" surrounding the performance. But such event performances and recordings are often disappointing. (Bernstein at "The Wall," Richter's 1st Carnegie Hall performance, Argerich, Maisky and Kremer doing the DSCH E minor trio.) And, unlike some here, I refuse to give this CD brownie points because it is a recording of an "event." Let the playing determine the event, not the hype.
For some thrilling modern performances of the concerto, try Lazar Berman/Bernstein/NYPO, 1958, or Pletnev/Rostropovich/Russian Nat'l Orchestra on DG. For the best historic performance, it's Horowitz/Coates/1930. Rachmaninoff's own performance, a shade below the Horowitz of 1930, is also indespensible. This recording, alas, is not.
 Not the icon that it seems May 30, 2005
Jeffrey Jones (Northern California, USA)
22 out of 29 found this review helpful
It would be too cruel to say that this disc can only be enjoyed by those with poor taste. I don't want to disparage those listeners who find that they like this recording, which features two of the most celebrated performers of Rachmaninoff - pianist Vladimir Horowitz and conductor Eugene Ormandy, both of whom knew the composer intimately and collaborated with him. The first time I listened to this CD as a young musician in search of inspiration, I was impressed, too. Subjectively, the old maestros Horowitz and Ormandy can have quite an impact. And as other reviewers have said, it is certainly more pleasant to listen to than the very shoddy original record released 3 weeks after the performance.
Objectively, though, and by the standards of piano playing today, this recording ranks among the worst ever made. The problems are numerous and overpowering, and they compound upon one another to produce a vile concoction. Even the sympathetic David Dubal, a good friend of Horowitz's and the editor of Remembering Horowitz: 125 Pianists Recall a Legend, wrote that this performance was "marked by excess and self-absorbed melancholy." Some of these problems are: a crass, harsh pianistic tone that sounds like the hammers were filed to a point to sound as percussive as possible; a dire lack of either forward drive or convincing languor; only the most tenuous of connections between pianist and conductor; and wrong notes all over the place.
The severe lapse in quality, compared with his great recordings from the '30s and '50s, is characteristic of his work from the late '70s. Horowitz was always temperamental; at the height of his fame in the '50s, he suddenly withdrew from performing. A decade later, he re-emerged, already sixty-two years old, and re-launched his career with the same force that had come with his emergence in the '20s as a virtuoso of astonishing ability. From there he enjoyed many productive years, but by the late '70s, he had started to decline. He aged, as everyone does, and wrestled with health problems. By 1982, he was a shadow of himself, heavily medicated and suffering severe memory lapses, but a period of recuperation saw him give some of the most amazing recordings of Mozart, Schumann, and Scriabin in the final years of his life. But before that, unfortunately, he left a Liszt Sonata, some Schubert Impromptus, a Chopin First Ballade, and a Rachmaninoff Third Concerto which are deplorable.
The Horowitz of 1965 who had been so good at assimilating the entire content of the score was replaced with an artist in a fat-Elvis period, no longer able to hold his concentration and forced to compensate with fireworks. It all rings false, and does no favors to the music he plays. Instead of this, by all means, hear Horowitz's earlier recording with Fritz Reiner. The same performance of the Sonata from this CD is also on that disc, so you can still decide for yourself whether you agree with me. Even if you don't like the 1980 Sonata, though, the 1951 Concerto is excellent, worlds apart from this 1978 recording, and well worth the price. There are also some appealing encore pieces included on that disc which are absent here, so all in all, it's clearly the better choice.
I can assume this will not be a terribly popular review, because Horowitz is - rightly - one of the sacred cows of the pianistic world, but to this listener, this disc is the nadir of Horowitz's output, and its popularity is puzzling and unfortunate.
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