(++++) KEYBOARD REVISITS

Liszt: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-3; Concerto Pathétique; Rhapsodie Espagnole; Malédiction; Totentanz; Fantasia on Hungarian Folk Themes; Wanderer Fantasy. Joshua Pierce, piano; State Symphony Orchestra of Russia, Moscow State Philharmonic Orchestra, and RTV Symphony Orchestra of Slovenia conducted by Paul Freeman; Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Kirk Trevor. MSR Classics. $19.95 (2 CDs).

Bach: Harpsichord Concertos in D minor, BWV 1052, and F minor, BWV 1056; Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. Jeannette Sorrell, harpsichord and conducting Apollo’s Fire. AVIE. $19.99.

Idil Biret Archive Edition, Volume 21: Waltzes and Dances by Chopin, Berlioz, Liszt, Ravel, Debussy, Kreisler/Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Bartók, Mimaroglu, and Johann Strauss Jr. Idil Biret, piano. IBA. $19.99.

Idil Biret Archive Edition, Volumes 22-23: Prokofiev—Piano Sonatas Nos. 2, 4, 7, 8, and 9; Toccata in D minor. Idil Biret, piano. IBA. $29.99 (2 CDs).

     The relative ease with which older recordings can now be remastered and reissued has led to something of a flood of performances that are decades old – sometimes many decades old – and that have historical value or curiosity value. But they do not always have musical value, and it can be hard to figure out to whom some of these reissues are designed to appeal if both their performance value and their sound quality have been superseded in more-recent years. On the other hand, the same comparative ease that allows reissue of somewhat mediocre material also has made it possible to hear (or re-hear) some truly excellent performances that have fallen by the wayside for no better reason than that newer readings by other performers are available. In fact, some older recordings – and they are really not all that old – can truly be revelatory on several levels. That is the case with the MSR Classics reissue of lots of Franz Liszt’s piano-and-orchestra music, all featuring Joshua Pierce and recorded from 1993 to 1996. First of all, the sound throughout is first-rate, quite as good as pretty much anything to be heard in this repertoire in more-recent releases. Second of all – and this is really first – Pierce is an absolutely top-notch Liszt performer, and in fact it was his highly dramatic debut with Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in Moscow, in 1993, that launched his international career (a situation reminiscent of the launch of Van Cliburn’s worldwide fame through his 1958 Moscow performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1). And with this recording we have, lo and behold, Pierce’s performance of the Liszt with, yes, the State Symphony Orchestra of Russia. It is not the career-launching performance, but it is contemporary and excellent on all levels. And it is offered not only with the second Liszt piano concerto but also with the third, a work not even known until the 1980s and one of which Pierce has become something of a champion. Throw in the fascinating Concerto Pathétique, published in this version after Liszt’s death and incorporating material from very early in his career as well as from his final years, and you have a splendid CD that is a genuine event to be celebrated by Liszt lovers. And it is only the first of the two discs in this release. The second collects five of the composer’s almost-concertos, several of which are a bit more on the level of “display pieces” than are the concertos themselves, but all of which repay the musicianly attention of Pierce to excellent effect, giving audiences highly impressive and often genuinely thrilling listening experiences. The decidedly strange Malédiction, Liszt/Busoni Rhapsodie Espagnole and Schubert/Liszt Wanderer Fantasy – the last of these lasting longer than any of the numbered concertos – are particularly impressive, but all the pieces are more than worthwhile and very much worth owning in this comprehensive set. Yes, the recording involves two conductors and four orchestras of differing provenance and quality (the two Russian ensembles are the most impressive); but it is Pierce’s music-making that is in the forefront here, and it is so effective on so many levels that it fully justifies the reissue of this exemplary set of performances.

     The keyboarding is of a different sort and on a different level in the AVIE re-release of Bach harpsichord concertos as played and conducted by Jeannette Sorrell – and this too is an again-available recording deserving of rejoicing. It is billed as a “25^th anniversary edition,” in recognition of the fact that the Brandenburg concertos as played by Sorrell and the period-instrument ensemble Apollo’s Fire were released in 1999 – with the non-Brandenburg D minor and F minor harpsichord concertos as bonuses. Here as with Pierce’s Liszt, albeit in very different ways, the recording has lost none of its quality and none of its charm. These are charming performances, with lilt and brightness that make it sound as if the musicians are having a lot of fun producing the music and sending it out for audiences to hear. Given the frequent stodginess with which Bach is often delivered – even by period-instrument groups and sometimes especially by them – this lighter, serious-but-just-slightly-frothy approach is thoroughly winning. Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, a harpsichord concerto in all but name, especially benefits from Sorrell’s handling of the music: the overall ensemble is very clear, the musical lines beautifully balanced against each other, and the harpsichord kept tucked neatly and expertly into its traditional role until it isn’t – emerging from the responsibility of undergirding the music into the spotlight on its own in a way that sounds not only inevitable but also simply right, as if the concerto could not possibly have gone any other way. Because the solo-level expectation regarding the harpsichord is absent in Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, there is an element of pleasant surprise when the keyboard becomes more and more dominant within the ensemble, providing a version of the delight that Haydn was later to create with his all-of-a-sudden harpsichord solo in the finale of his Symphony No. 98. The D minor and F minor concertos, of course, are expected to focus on the harpsichord, and Sorrell makes sure that they do so in the historically informed milieu within which Apollo’s Fire makes music: there are no Lisztian fireworks or anything approaching them here, but there is primus inter pares camaraderie aplenty and, as a result, Bach performances that delight and captivate 25 years after their original release.

     Neither Pierce’s recording nor Sorrell’s ought really to be designated as “historic,” but that adjective does apply to the reissues in the long-running Idil Biret Archive Edition, which makes available recordings by the excellent Turkish pianist dating back considerably more than 25 or 30 years – in many cases as digital remasterings of original analog productions. The two latest releases from IBA continue to showcase the series’ unerring focus on this justifiably renowned pianist, who was born in 1941 and is still going strong. She was very much in her prime as a performer when the performances on these releases took place. Volume 21 is a potpourri of lighter and mostly familiar music, in effect a full CD of encore material, with recordings made as long ago as 1961 – although in one case (Liszt’s Tarantella from Venezia e Napoli) dating to 2011 and in another (Debussy’s La plus que lente) recorded as recently as 2018. The main thing that this disc shows is that Biret has been sensitive to the expressive nuances of these not-always-consequential little pieces throughout her career, and that her technique remains as consistent as her thinking about the music. The last two works on the disc are especially interesting. The penultimate is Pieces Sentimentales by Ilhan Mimaroglu, who is really known only for his electronic music but who created this pleasant (and tonal) piece early in his career. And the final work here is the Leopold Godowsky arrangement of Johann Strauss Jr.’s Künstlerleben, a version that extends and decorates the music far beyond what Strauss ever intended and in so doing creates a pianistic firebrand that Biret appears thoroughly to enjoy putting on display.

     Matters are considerably more serious in the IBA Volumes 22-23, which are devoted – both CDs – to piano sonatas by Prokofiev. The recordings here were made as early as 1960 and as late as 1977, all therefore in analog form, and they include some sonatas that she often played in recital as well as two – Nos. 8 and 9 – that she apparently recorded only once, for radio airplay. Biret has had a longstanding affinity for Russian music, especially the works of Rachmaninoff, but her handling of Prokofiev’s sonatas is more uneven, in the sense that she performed some frequently and others rarely. What is clear from the readings on this two-CD set, however, is that Biret thoroughly understands the structures of these sonatas and their differing intentions and emotional impact. She also displays remarkable consistency over the decades in handling the works’ technical and expressive challenges: Sonata No. 7 is offered here two separate times, once near the start of the first CD (as recorded in 1961) and once at the end of the second (as recorded in 1977). There is nothing formulaic or strictly duplicative in the two renditions, each of which has slightly different emphases and slightly differing tempo choices. But both are clearly reflective of Biret’s sensibilities and her understanding of Prokofiev’s music and his thinking about keyboard style, which means listeners to this release get even more insight into Biret as a thoughtful as well as technically accomplished pianist than the IBA discs usually provide. It is an out-and-out joy to have these recordings, like those by Pierce and Sorrell, readily available to music lovers everywhere.