Grieg - Piano Concerto [Tanyel/Burgos-London Symphony Orchestra]Seta Tanyel is Armenian, she made a number of wonderful recordings for Collins Classics, sadly the company has discontinued recording and distributing, a great shame as they were such an enterprising record label, she has recorded for Hyperion and Chandos too.
I saw this disc second-hand on the internet, and quickly snapped it up, i haven't extensively listened to this disc, it's still fairly new in my library, but my initial impression is i like it a lot, another great cover shot, the graduated blue background makes the warmer colours of the face stand out, and that hair!.
I especially enjoyed the first movement, there's lots to enjoy here, lovely legato playing with the Bassoon accompanying [2:46-3:58], great use of the full keyboard in ascending figures at [5:06-5:37], lovely use of staccato scales at [6:23-7:03], especially the rapid fire descending down the keyboard [6:44-6:48], the solo cadenza starts at [8:59], i find that slow passages are played too slow, it's as if she's stopping to help us notice something extra beautiful here or there, but it impedes the flow of things, there's some tremendous growling bass passages played with forte, with exciting rippling lines at the end of the cadenza [10:42-12:06], it's so good to be able to examine this disc to discover what i find to be truly memorable, another asset to my collection.
Here's Valentina Lisitsa playing the first movement on YouTube.
