Delos DE 2013

Rubinstein: Piano Concertos Nos 2 and 4 – Alexander Paley, State Symphony Orchestra of Russia, Igor Golovchin

The five piano concertos of Anton Rubinstein opened a new era in the history of Russian piano art, setting the stage for the Russian concerto masterpieces to come – such as those of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. Several generations of Russian and foreign pianists were brought up on Rubinstein’s concertos, especially the Fourth. It was included in the repertoires of nearly all major pianists of the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. But modern recordings of it (and its companions) remain few and far between.

All the more reason to welcome warmly this Delos download of Russian Disk’s classic recording of Rubinstein’s Second and Fourth Concertos, performed by distinguished, Russian-trained artists. The brilliant Moldovan-American pianist Alexander Paley and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra under Igor Golovchin have joined forces to produce glittering and idiomatic accounts of both works.