Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2; Chopin: 14 Waltzes

• Main performer: Alexander Brailowsky
• Booklet languages: English
• Time: 78:52

Review

Anyone who remembers Alexander Brailowsky (1896-1976), raise your hand. Your virtual non-response is understandable. The Russian-born pianist who later became a French citizen and ended his career in America rarely gets more than a brief paragraph in the standard references. He also rarely gets reissued with hardly any of his Columbia or RCA recordings still available and no two-disc commemorative volume in Philips' Great Pianists of the Twentieth Century series. From in his prime from the '20s through the '50s, however, Brailowsky was often praised for his supremely polished yet deeply expressive style of performing, although he was also sometimes criticized for his tendency to play handfuls of wrong notes without warning.

This disc coupling Brailowsky's 1952 recording of Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony under Enrique Jorda and his 1954 solo recording of Chopin's Waltzes from New York shows him at his best and his worst. In both performances, there are moments of pure magic -- the supple lyricism of concerto's central Adagio sostenuto, the limpid tempos of the B minor Waltz, Op. 69/2 -- moments of pure virtuosity -- the bravura cadenza in the concerto's closing Allegro scherzando, the luminous trill work of the A flat major Waltz, Op. 42 -- and moments of pure horror -- grotesquely wrong chords at the climax of the concerto's opening Moderato, the hideously wrong left-hand octaves at the climax of the E flat major Waltz, Op. 18. Is Brailowsky worth remembering? Certainly. He was a worthy player who in his time served as a viable alternative to the steel-fingered Horowitz and the sticky-fingered Rubinstein, and who, in our time, reminds us of a style of playing no longer fashionable. Urania's minimal remastering of RCA's half-century-old sound is incredibly antique but absolutely transparent. ~ James Leonard, Rovi

Performances

Composer	Title	Time
Sergey Rachmaninov	Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18	30:14
Frédéric Chopin	Waltz for piano No. 1 in E flat major, Op. 18, CT. 207	4:32
Frédéric Chopin	Waltzes (3) for piano, Op. 34, CT. 208-210	13:17
Frédéric Chopin	Waltzes (2) for piano, Op. 69, CT. 215-216	8:28
Frédéric Chopin	Waltzes (3) for piano, Op. 64, CT. 212-214	8:09
Frédéric Chopin	Waltz for piano No. 5 in A flat major, Op. 42, CT. 211	3:42
Frédéric Chopin	Waltzes (3) for piano, Op. 70, CT. 217-219	8:08
Frédéric Chopin	Waltz for piano in E minor, KK IVa/15, CT. 222 (B. 56)	2:22

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