Schumann - Piano Concerto [Luisada/ Tilson Thomas-London Symphony Orchestra]
This is such a tremendously popular coupling, of course it's really obvious, Grieg patterned his Concerto on the Schumann, in many ways they're similar, it's the romantic fantasy of both of them, and Schumann's Concerto started out as a one movement Fantasy, but then his wife encouraged him to work it into something much more.
Michael Tilson Thomas was born in the United States, he is now 65 years of age, this recording was made in 1993, the booklet cover is a really nice shot, with Luisada sitting crossed legged at the foot of his piano, while Tilson Thomas stands over the instrument at the back.
Usually i like the first two movements the best, but on this listen i found myself drawn to the third movement, on this recording the piano is well caught, but the orchestra seem a little backward, sounds mono-ish in a way, not enough stereo left and right extremes, but this is only a slight quibble, of course the third movement comes straight in attached from the second, it's almost a fantasy in a way, a couple of sections that really stood out for me, the first is a nice long passage almost halfway through [4:14-5:30], where the piano goes up and down the keyboard in a tag duet with orchestra [4:14-4:56], some really nice piano legato here, then the horns / woodwind build things up [4:56-5:05] to a nice climax where the full orchestra comes in forte [5:05-5:30], which develops into a duet with the piano at the end, the second section that i found fantastic, is fairly near the end [7:56-9:09], starts off with what sounds like the start of a sort of cadenza by the piano [7:56-8:15], but just explodes into a powerful orchestral tutti [8:15-8:39], and then the piano has a virtuoso solo part, up and down and all over the keyboard [8:40-9:09], it's a thrilling finale to a great Piano Concerto.
Here's Martha Argerich playing the third movement on YouTube.
