Minnesota Orchestra / Osmo Vänskä MAHLER 1

The shimmering string harmonics at the opening of Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony bring to mind the suspended breath of spring, and will have signalled even to the very first audiences that a new symphonic era was being ushered in. Soon enough the composer introduces some of the elements that would become key components of his musical language: sounds of nature (here cuckoo calls) are combined with quasi-militaristic fanfares and ‘high-art’ chromatic wanderings in cellos, as if to illustrate Mahler’s view of the symphony as an all-embracing art form. The symphony, which the composer originally gave the subtitle ‘Titan’, borrows extensively from the song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. But Mahler also incorporates elements of Moravian popular music (in the second movement) and – in the slow third movement – famously quotes a minor-mode version of the children’s rhyme Bruder Martin (also known as Frere Jacques). The finale transports the listener to a world of Gothic theatricality reminiscent of Grand Opera, before arriving – after a number of false starts – at the symphony’s heroic chorale-like ending.

Yevgeny Sudbin / Minnesota Orchestra / Osmo Vänskä BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto 3 - MOZART Piano Concerto 24

“It’s weird”, I thought, before listening to this album, “Mozart’s Concerto No. 24 and Beethoven’s Concerto No. 3 are very similar, but you rarely see them together on an album.” Then I listened and realized why: they are, in fact, so similar that playing them back-to-back creates a risk of burnout, even in performances as good as these.

They’re both in C minor. Their opening themes sound a little alike. They both trade in grand heroism, with plush slow movements and turbulent finales. Listening to them together, you get the very strong impression that Beethoven was keeping close to his source.

Yevgeny Sudbin helps this along by turning up the dial a little bit in the Mozart, and dialing a little back in the Beethoven. The cadenzas, which he wrote himself, provide the standout moments: the first Mozart cadenza is overtly Beethovenian, including, at 12:40, a deliberate quote of the opening melody from Beethoven’s third concerto. The Mozart finale’s cadenza includes a short (abortive?) fugue of Sudbin’s own devising, which is surprising and a little harsh, while the first-movement cadenza in the Beethoven concerto contains the most breathtaking playing on the whole CD.

The Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä are perfect, almost too much so, reminding me of my criticism of these forces’ symphony cycle: that it sounds like Beethoven played by well-engineered robots. That cycle had many fans who will love this. I can say, though, that the woodwinds - particularly clarinets - make beautiful sounds in the Mozart larghetto, full of Viennese elegance.

Some critics have noted that Sudbin makes the simplest passages (runs, trills) into the greatest pleasures. This is true. His playing is so precisely voiced, and so crystal-clear, that it’s hard not to be enthralled by passages which, to other pianists, are the busy work. This alone would make the recording a standout. The cadenzas add interest, and most of you will probably like the coupling and orchestra more than I did. Recommended in the expectation that time will increase my appreciation for the musicianship here. (Brian Reinhart)

Yevgeny Sudbin / Minnesota Orchestra / Osmo Vänskä BEETHOVEN Piano Concertos 4 & 5

With this release Yevgeny Sudbin and Osmo Vänskä launch their Beethoven concerto cycle in a novel and intriguing fashion. Going in at the deep end with the most lyrical and magisterial of the concertos, Sudbin makes it clear that he has little use for Beethoven weighed down, as it were, with excess baggage, with the heft and earnestness of a more conventional view. Instead, his delectably light-fingered brilliance and virtuosity shines a new light on some of the most familiar scores in the repertoire, making a supposed division between Mozart’s Apollonian and Beethoven’s Dionysian genius seem little more than a cliché.

True, listeners used to a greater intensity and expansiveness may balk at the nervy rapidity of Sudbin’s reflexes, recalling the greater ease and breadth of past masters of the Beethoven concertos such as Gilels or Arrau, or the more speculative or interior stance of, say, Radu Lupu. But if Sudbin occasionally suggests “time’s winged chariot hurrying near”, the mother-of-pearl sheen of his pianism is backed by a special underlying sensitivity. In the grandest of Beethoven’s two cadenzas for the Fourth Concerto, Sudbin’s spine-tingling pace takes him close to the edge; but hearing him in the phantom entry to the Emperor Concerto’s finale reminds you that you are listening to a wholly individual artist. Such mercurial pianism keeps Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra on their toes but they follow their soloist as to the manner born. BIS’s sound and balance are excellent and the rest of this cycle is eagerly awaited. (Bryce Morrison - Gramophone)