Bill B. inquired about cellists and recordings of Rachmaninoff piano
concerti.  Well I pretty much draw a blank about cellists whose renditions
of the Elgar concerto exceed that of DuPre, but about Rachmaninoff piano
concerti I am full of not-terribly-well-informed opinions.  Having declared
my expertise, I'll offer the following.

For the oxymoronic mature youthfulness to which Bill aspires, no recordings
are more simultaneously youthful and mature than the one the fully mature
Jascha Horenstein did with the youthful Earl Wild who performed at what
I consider the most controlled impetuousness imaginable.  My father has
Wild on a Chandos CD performaning all the Rachmaninoff piano concerti,
and nowhere does this music come alive as much to me as on this recording.
My father claims the tempi is often too fast, but then again he's never
been a big one for excitement.  Not far behind was Van Cliburn and Reiner-
another combination of youth and maturity- in a performance of the second
piano concerto which showed Van Cliburn at his best.  Van Cliburn's
repertoire may have had a small range, and perhaps he failed to grow
musically, but at his best I think he was hard to beat, and I think this
is Cliburn at his best.  Unfortunately, I think this was not one of the
Chicago Symphony's greatest efforts, but certainly adequate.

I confess to a slight disappointment with a recording I have of Richter
performing the second piano concerto with some Eastern European Orchestra.
Now Richter's performance was supremely lyrical, with a most dynamic
final movement, and his legendary technique was up to form, but Richter
approached this work in an understated manner.  In fact, I think the
liner notes said Richter and the conductor agreed to this approach, so
it was a conscious decision not to be dramatic.  A matter of taste, I
am sure, so probably there are those who would sing the praises of this
rendition.  I note that Rachmaninoff was not exactly favored by the
leading music critics of the Worker's Paradise, and possibly some of
that attitude rubbed off on Richter, who was nonetheless fully capable
of independent thinking (it was he who insisted that Cliburn had to win
the gold in the first Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, leaving it to
Kruschev to make the final determination.  Nikita, to his credit, had
no hang-ups on the matter.  When this vexing problem posed by Richter
was brought to his attention, Kruschev inquired, "Is this Texan really
that good?".  When told "Yes, he is", the Premier retorted, "Then give
it [the gold medal] to him!").

A youthful performance from a few years ago of the third piano concerto-
Volodos, with the Berlin Phil- is also high on my list.  As I recall,
it received mixed reviews, although most were quite positive.  This CD
benefited from excellent recording engineering.

Finally, someone I know and whose opinion I respect- she frequently
agrees with my own- claims Horowitz made the best single recording of
the third piano concerto.  This same person expressed some disappointment
in Lang Lang's recent recording of same.

Larry Sherwood