Brahms - Piano Concerto 1 [Curzon/ Szell-London Symphony Orchestra]It wasn't that many days ago i played this work, and in fairly quick succession i'm playing it again, but my love of this work can easily accommodate repeated listening, very surprisingly the sound is terrific, recorded in 1962, and yet it sounds like a very modern recording, i admit that it's quite a rare disc, you don't see these very often on Ebay, last year i wrote about another Decca / Curzon disc of Schubert's last Piano Sonata [18th May 2011], the pictures must have been shot at the same session [by Fritz Curzon], this is a tremendous disc to own.
Clifford Curzon died nearly 30 years ago, he was 75, his recorded output is somewhat limited, but what he recorded is well worth grabbing, like i said, the shot is a lovely portrait, jet black background, slightly soft focus, lovely lighting which shows contours, and the white lettering is nicely done, a great product.
I so much enjoyed the huge first movement, here it lasts 22 minutes, and Brahms casts it in a dark D Minor turmoil, and it has a huge intro, fierce at first, then swallowed up in grief [1:01+], the opening comes back [2:35+], the internal voices are superbly caught in the recording here, especially the busy strings, the initial entry by Curzon is nicely done, there are short moments where the sun peeks out of the turbulence, and there's a sort of gritty triumphalism at times, the dark piano bass notes halfway through [10:53+] are nicely foreboding as they turn to mid treble, the work is filled with dark timpani drumbeats, almost warlike at times [the drumbeats of war!], two minutes before the end the piano becomes gentle in a coda-esque slowing [20:14-20:35], but the orchestra rallies for one last ferocious burst, i love the way Curzon goes up and down the keyboard [21:41-21:55], a great ending, the following Adagio is really taken too slow.
Here's Clifford Curzon playing the first movement on YouTube.
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