Dvorak & Walton: Cello Concertos [Hybrid SACD, Import]

Update May 19, 2012
I was listening to this recording again and began to wonder if I could discover which cello Piatigorsky was playing for this recording. The liner notes show this recording was made in February 22, 1960 so the question became which cello was Piatigorsky most likely using in 1960. Fortunately, thanks to the web I was able to discover which instrument he was most likely using. At that point in his career he had acquired the cello which he most prized, the "Batta Stradivarius" cello which later came to be referred to as the Batta-Piatigorsky Violoncello and is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I've posted a photo of the "Batta-Piatigorsky Violoncello" in pictures.

Original review
I ordered this disc for three reasons, Dvorak's Cello Concerto, Gregor Piatigorsky, and SACD. The biggest surprise was the SACD part but I'll get to that later.

First the Dvorak Cello Concerto. As a teenager I was a student of the cello and had the great good fortune to have as my teacher a remarkable lady who was the Principal Cellist with the Houston Symphony Orchestra. The opportunity to study cello with her was one of the really special experiences I had as a student of the instrument.

One of my first LP recordings of the Dvorak featured Gregor Piatigorsky. Later I had the opportunity to hear my teacher perform the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the Houston Symphony; I was so proud of her that I could hardly stand it.

These events secured a special place in my heart for the concerto where it has remained for many years. When I saw this recording of Piatigorsky playing the Dvorak I knew I wanted it. I have just finished playing it and am bursting to tell you about my surprise.

When SACD first came out Sony produced a number of two channel recordings based on earlier works in their catalog; these recordings were sometimes rather marginal in their technical quality and certainly didn't realize the full potential of the SACD medium.

When I saw this was an older recording redone in SACD I was mildly concerned that this would be a repeat of my Sony experience. The big surprise for me was these are excellent sonically and have fabulous sound on SACD. This particular recording is a three channel recording using the front left, center, and front right channels which can all be played on any multi-channel SACD player.

The liner notes tell how the RCA engineers recorded some of their "Living Stereo" recordings with three channels using a three-track recording made on an Ampex 300-3 machine using 1/2 inch tape running at 15 ips and later at 30 ips (ips stands for inches per second). Although at the time the technology didn't exist for three channel playback in the home there must have been the hopeful expectation that such technology would eventually be available for use in the home.

The results for the listener is an outstanding musical experience with phenomenal dynamic range. I was amazed to get such quality from a recording made so many years ago and to get Piatigorsky playing the Dvorak with such audio quality was much more that I had even hoped for.

If you're set up for home theater surround, happen to love music, and you are not yet enjoying SACD may I suggest the OPPO BDP-93 universal player offered by Amazon for $499.99. It will play your Blu-ray, 3D, DVD, SACD, DVD-A, and CD's all very well. I have the older BDP-83 and have had great success with it.

We're living in technologically exciting times; I hope you're having fun with it!

These recordings, made as long ago as 1957 (Walton) and 1960 (Dvorak), still compete with the best available in both works, partly due to the fine new remastering that defies age.

The Walton concerto was dedicated to Piatigorsky who also gave it its first performance and first recording, heard here. It is reasonable to suppose that it must therefore match Walton's intentions very closely. Since then there have been other fine performances by the likes of Yo Yo Ma, Raphael Wallfisch and Tim Hugh, all of which I have and still enjoy. Nevertheless this performance carries with it a certain extra authority. Couplings vary considerably and all are equally tempting. Ma provides the wonderful Elgar concerto, Hugh provides Walton's wonderful violin concerto and Wallfisch starts an all Walton program including the wonderful Improvisations on a Britten impromptu.

Piatigorsky is coupled with another great cello concerto - the Dvorak. This is beautifully played by Piatigorsky with an emphasis upon the lyrical nature of the work. Munch provides typically energetic support at other times so that this performance has quite some built-in variety on offer. The combination of these two musicians makes for interesting dramatic contrasts in the first movement, shared lyricism in the second and a final movement which sparkles as it should in between moments of melodic repose. This performance, by covering a wider emotional range than is often the case, offers a substantial reading which gives considerable satisfaction.

In conclusion I would suggest that this very fine disc of two fine concertos makes for a very tempting purchasing proposition. It deserves to be considered seriously by anyone interested in the coupling. For those contemplating an upgrade of their previous issue, I would suggest that this remastering has been a considerable success.

There are three features of this album which make it must for any serious record collector. The first is that (to the best of my knowledge) this is the only concert stereo recording made by Piatigorsky. The second is that, as far as cellists go, he was one of the supreme masters of the century; and therefore any recorded performance by him is automatically a treasure worth having. - You will take note please, that I eschew the silly and insupportable claims so often found in these reviews that some musician and/or recording is "the greatest". I suppose those people have music barometers in their possession. But I've never seen one. Have you? So "one of the supreme ..." will do.
The third claim is that Piatigorsky commissioned the Walton Concerto. This means that he must have felt a special kind of proprietorship, since the composer naturally consulted him on the technical aspects of writing for the cello - read: for Piatigorsky's style of musicianship.
One aspect which depends on you, the listener, is that Piatigorsky was on the point of retiring when this recording was made. He had already curtailed his appearances considerably and did not practice as much, as cellists do who must perform in public week after week. This raises the possibility that his "hunger" for a perfect rendition might not have been as acute as perhaps 10 years earlier. But this does not explain his "technical deficiencies" which one reviewer castigated on this page. Rather it is explained by his refusal to cowtow to the demands of the studio for note perfect execution, which does not sit well with whatever the inspiration of the moment might have induced him to do.
Taking the Walton first: you will indeed find cellists with a more secure intonation. But this is to some extent putting the cart before the horse. Piatigorsky was interested in a sweet and creamy tone: you will find similar slightly "off centre" bowing in others of his recordings. You will find in some violinist's recordings e.g. Menuhin. To call this a fault is misunderstanding an essential criterion of his musicianship. Perfect intonation can (in the wrong hands) promote a cold, uninvolved relationship to the music, which is something that cellists of the older generation assiduously avoided (violinists too). I suggest that Piatigorsky still believed that there was a soul in music yearning to express itself; and now consider that any pressure on the strings increases the emotional intensity. You would have to be a cold fish to miss or criticise this. For example that warm and wonderful cantilena which opens the first movement would lose half its charm in dead centre execution. Piatigorsky really caresses the melody, where e.g. Tortelier seems to show an urge to get on with (moreover his oboist sounds sour, and that's not altogether pleasant). Or listen to the minicadenza at 5'18", what a deeply felt utterance and perfect preparation for the muted strings episode! It is true that in one or two spots in the fast middle movement, the soloist and ensemble are not perfectly together, but those are fleeting moments, of importance only if your intention is to put the reading down. I admit that I can conceive of better (read: more sensitive) accompanists than Munch.
The cellist is in solo territory for long stretches of the third movement, and here Piatigorsky really comes into his own, I feel. As far as eloquence and pure, unadulterated musical feeling is concerned, no-one can hold the candle to him here.
Altogether similar sentiments apply to the Dvorak work. With so many recordings around (I have 17 in my personal collection, but of course auditioned many more), hearing this version makes you painfully aware of how dispensable much of this pseudo-wealth actually is. Considering stereo only: once you've lived with Rostropovich, Fournier, Tortelier, Starker, du Pré and Rose, you will have come close to exhausting the possibilities for a deep and meaningful interpretation - other performances begin to sound like "readings" or introduce idiosyncrasies that outwear their welcome on second hearing. They have to struggle against this competition! This is when bored listeners begin to enthuse about sound, and I always ask myself when I see such comments: the sound of WHAT? Is it worth raving about when the sound is the major talking point?
This version by Piatigorsky is indispensable. It is a view from deep inside, by an artist who may have played this a hundred timers and more; and yet retains an unblocked perspective. Munch too seems much more "on the ball" here, and for once you get to hear the lovely woodwind melodies behind the cello and the chatty dialogue between oboes, flutes and cello that occurs on several occasions, you know that you're in the company of authentic music making. But what strikes me more than anything is the sense of creative purpose in this collaboration. The middle movement and the adagio section shortly before the end of the work often sound like episodes of sentimental drooling, but here they receive a manly yet affect-laden treatment that is utterly convincing -- because it comes from within and has the logic of the whole sweep of the work behind it. The "problems" mentioned above with cello tone recur; but here even more than in the Walton concerto they are an expressive necessity, by no means faults.
Altogether this is an album that demands insight and lots of musical sensitivity from a listener. You can't use this for wallpaper; it is too highly individualised. If you're one of those people who listen with the lights off and the doors closed, this is for you. Not perhaps as the only recording you'll ever need, but as one of perhaps four or five that convey the full splendour of one of the finest concerted woks in the whole repertoire.
Finally a word about the engineers. They did a really superb job. With all the hue and cry about re-mastering, we should remember that modern technology can't actually improve on the sound as recorded; and this album was done in 1957 and 1960. We can clean off the tape hiss and reinstate the dynamic range that was there in the first place, but had to be sacrificed to the exigencies of pressing this rich sound into an LP groove. So: hats off to the original engineers! They produced a superb, warm ambience, and analytical enough for us to her every section of the orchestra even during the heavy weather of Dvorak's score.