Sunday Classics: Who says a piano concerto has to be all this way or that way? Not Camille Saint-Saëns, for sure!

Movement "B" (plus, for reasons I can't explain, the opening of the following movement), played by pianist Nelson Freire, with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by David Shallon

by Ken

If you were with us in Friday night's and last night's previews, you know we've been listening to two piano-concerto movements, about as different as piano-concerto movements get, and now you know the CD that's had me listening to and thinking about them.

If you didn't know the identity of the music in question, if you just looked closely at the photo I posted last night of the jacket of the original RCA Arthur Rubinstein Heart of the Piano Concerto LP, which I told you was where I first encountered our Movement "B" (we even heard that very performance!), from the list of composers you shouldn't have had much difficulty picking out Charles Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) as the composer of this supremely scintillating music.

Since the Testament Gilels CD cover is frustratingly vague about the actual contents of the disc, I can tell you that the Saint-Saëns concertos it contains is the Second, and Movement "B" is the middle movement, marked appropriately Allegro scherzando. For a lazy Sunday, I thought it might be pleasant to hear both Gilels and Rubinstein play it again, this time leading right into the suitably volatile, worry-free finale.


TO FINISH UNRAVELING THE SECRETS
OF MOVEMENTS "A" AND "B," CLICK HERE

The Gilels CD that started all the trouble

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Sunday Classics: Now we have TWO mystery piano concerto movements

The great Soviet pianist Emil Gilels (1916-1985)

by Ken

In last night's preview we heard just the opening of what I'll call Movement "A" of a piano concerto. That's right, it's from a piano concerto. You didn't hear the orchestra because I cut it off just at the moment of its first entrance. It was taken, you'll recall, from a CD I've been having fun with which as I pointed out contains two works -- in fact, two piano concertos -- so different that I don't believe they've ever appeared otherwise on the same record (LP or CD).

By way of a refresher for those who've heard last night's installment, and a catcher-upper for those who haven't, and because I hate keeping secrets, I'm going to play last night's clip again, this time letting the orchestra make its entrance, and I'm even going to tell you that the soloist is the great Russian pianist Emil Gilels. And then, for the sake of variety, we're going to hear this same excerpt played by another distinguished pianist.

THE OPENING OF MOVEMENT "A" -- PLAYED FIRST
BY GILELS, THEN BY SOME OTHER FAMOUS PIANIST

Emil Gilels, piano
Some Other Famous Pianist


Now, although I promised last night that tonight we would hear the whole of what we're now calling Movement "A" (which we will), when we pick up in the click-through, we're going to start with Movement "B."


TO HEAR MOVMENT "B" AND ALL OF "A," AND
TO LEARN WHO THE OTHER PIANIST IS, CLICK HERE

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[4/9/2011] Preview: Now we have TWO mystery piano concerto movements (continued)

REMEMBER THE "HEART OF THE PIANO CONCERTO"
LP? MOVEMENT "B" WAS INCLUDED ON THAT

Now I can reveal that the Other Famous Pianist we just heard playing the opening of Movement "A" was none other than the great Arthur Rubinstein, and I dragged him in here for the sake of Movement "B," because it was a recording of his via which I first encountered this music, as one of the six concerto movements included in RCA's Heart of the Piano Concerto anthology, one of the very first classical LPs in our house, as I wrote originally in connection with the rondo finale of the Beethoven Third Concerto, which I used to listen to truly obsessively. It's because we're now poised to hear Rubinstein and Gilels play irresistibly breezy, elegant, joyful Movement "B" that I dragged in Rubinstein's performance of Movement "A" to play alongside Gilels's.

So here is the very Rubinstein performance of the insatiably delicious Movement "B" which I started listening to all those years ago, followed by the Gilels performance from the same CD as his Movement "A." (You know, the CD that started this whole thing.) I can't tell you yet who the orchestras and conductors are; for now, that would be telling too much. With all the information I've given you, though, I feel as if I've practically told you everything.

MOVEMENT "B"

Arthur Rubinstein, piano
Emil Gilels, piano


Finally (for tonight), let's hear -- finally! -- the whole of Movement "A," played first by Gilels and then by Rubinstein.

MOVEMENT "A"

Emil Gilels, piano
Arthur Rubinstein, piano



IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

The solution to all of our mysteries -- and we'll hear all of the so-far-missing music.


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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