Beethoven - Piano Concerto 5 [Grimaud/ Jurowski-Staatskapelle Dresden]This is another disc that is relatively new to my collection / library, and it's a stunner, i really admire Helene Grimaud, she's got a sure direction in life, and a love of a wonderful variety of the old and the new, her latest discs attest to her wandering spirit, she seems into everything, and this disc along with her Brahms Klavierstucke Op116-119 on Erato, and her Rachmaninov Teldec discs, are the peaks of her recordings, i really enjoyed the sheer spirit and fun of this work, it's one of the best Beethoven Fifths i own.
Helene Grimaud is French, she's now 42, and really at the peak of her powers, she recorded this work in 2006, the front cover is truly sublime and astonishing [photo by Mat Hennek], a portrait of Grimaud dressed in black, with black hair on a white background, a wonderful symmetry about it, elbows out and hands interlocked in the middle, the lettering and colours add to the whole feel, this is one of the very best 'visual' discs that i own.
This was a sublime experience, revolutionary in the first movement, touching, even spiritual in the second, and then leap for sheer joy in the third, i have a two disc version, which comes with a DVD, and it's so good to see Grimaud in action, especially her raptures in the sublime slow movement, and i was going to write about those tender feelings i had, but the third movement blew me away,
Here's Helene Grimaud playing the third movement on YouTube, with Paavo Jarvi conducting.
