Don summed up:

>Overall, my three favorite sets are now Brendel/Rattle, Brendel/Levine,
>and Perahia/Haitink.

I share Don's affection for Perahia's set.  I've now listened to Brendel's
set with interest.  The more I hear of Brendel's playing, live and on
record, the more bemused I am by his high reputation.  His chords crash
like a pub pianist's.  His keyboard palette and tone-colour remain very
plain, his phrasing's emphases and sforzandi bobbing like lumps in
porridge.

While Brendel clunked his way through a concerto's passagework, I counted
twenty-five double portraits of him and Simon Rattle in the CD case and
booklet.  Alfred and Simon chortling in conversation.  Alfred and Simon
beautifully backlit on a sunny afternoon.  Alfred and Simon acknowledging
applause on the Musikvereinsaal platform.  Alfred murmuring in Simon's ear.
A view of the backs of Alfred and Simon's heads, on the back of the CD
case.  I couldn't find a picture of Beethoven, just to remind myself of
what the composer looked like.

These performances tend towards moderate tempi, so that finales dance
and spark less than they can.  Simon Rattle squeezes some tart sonorities
from the VPO, which doesn't ladle its usual creamy textures over the music;
e.g.  in the 3rd Concerto, I liked the gaunt woodwind chord balances in the
first movement, and the very brusque string interjections of the second.
The Phillips recording spotlights the piano too much (so that it obscures
quieter orchestral comments), highlights the woodwind to revealing effect,
understates the French horns and makes the timpani sound spongy.

Just in case you think I'm being being harsher than a Brendel fortissimo,
I compared his 5th Piano Concerto with two other performances:
Horowitz/CSO/Reiner (1952) and Fischer/Philharmonia/Furtwangler (1951).
Both these recordings have more dynamic first movements with invigorating
forward momentum, while Brendel's at 20:54 is one of the slowest and most
episodic I've heard.  Horowitz can be a flash player (as in the first
movement mini-cadenza at m.493) but his phrasing and rubato have more life
and suppleness than Brendel's.  Fischer's tone colour above the treble
stave is wonderfully pellucid, and Furtwangler makes an infectious romp of
the last movement.  In the slow movement, both he and Reiner bring out the
violin melody more effectively than Rattle.

I suppose Brendel's plain-spoken style is alright, but it suffers in
comparison with the playing of other pianists of a similar reputation.

James Kearney
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