Piano concertos nos. 3 and 4

"These are riveting Beethoven performances from a player who with remarkable musicality demonstrates that he can play with both terrific flair and vibrancy together with palpable sensitivity. All in all this disc make for an impressive first look at a remarkably talented performer".

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"Back in 2018, when he was still a relatively fresh face, I absolutely loved Martin Helmchen's Alpha recording of the Diabelli Variations. I haven't heard him in Beethoven since, but this disc alone is a worthy contribution to 2020's Beethoven 250 celebrations. This team have now released three discs featuring all of the concertos involving a piano: this is the only one I've heard, but it's a winner ... The Triple Concerto is particularly good, the best I've heard since Howard Shelley's, and definitely one of the Beethoven 250 releases that I'll be playing for many years to come".

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"Beautifully played and sensitively accompanied though it is, this new recording of the Third Concerto presents the listener with one central issue: recorded balance. After the lean, crisp introduction provided by Petrenko and the RLPO, so closely is Boris Giltburg's sonorous, bell-like tone recorded here that the orchestral accompaniment seems to be more of a backdrop to a star soloist than an equal partner ... Giltburg is a poet of the keyboard ... I actually favour the Fourth above all ... Here the balance between orchestra and soloist is better".

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"Of the two, it is the performance of the concerto that gives the greater satisfaction, which is a pity since the Mass is the rarer bird and even more elusive to the touch ... Robustly delivered, the San Francisco performance is more an all-purpose choral occasion than an attempt to meet the work on its own particular ground ... Ironically the performance of the C minor Piano Concerto ... has many of the qualities of refinement and imagination which that of the Mass lacks".

"Vurdering: IRR outstanding" - "There's no need for any hesitation here: this is a wonderful pair of discs of Beethoven's last three piano concertos ... Pizarro and Mackerras seem to share the same approach to this music - both have looked at these works afresh and have found new things in them".

"Vurdering: Editor's choice" - "Never for a moment does she over-reach herself or force pace and sonority ... Few pianists have ever been more true to their own lights and it is hardly surprising that her many performances of this concerto in London and elsewhere have become the stuff of legends ... It is my dearest wish that this will become a complete cycle".

"The present performances are beautiful in the ways one would expect, for instance Pires's immaculate fingerwork, crystalline sonority and natural, instinctive musicianship, but they are also musically revealing in ways that concerns Daniel Harding with regard to the relationship between tempo and cahracter".

""[Gorlach] is an assured musician. He plays wth commendable straightforwardness, not tempted to be different for the sake of it. His technique, as might be expected, is effortless, but his playing isn't glib. His music-making is clear-sighted and respectful ... He trust the composer without ever becoming slavish or bland ... As a calling card this release makes a very positive impression: these are seriously good interpretations".

"Helmchen is extraordinarily adept at creating vivid contrasts between areas of repose and eruptions of energy. Without being fussy, he is ever on the lookout for the telling detail, be it in phrasing or passagework. His trills are wonderfully varied and always suited to their rhetorical context. If it is axiomatic to claim that Beethoven players stand or fall on the strength of their slow movements, in the hallowed climes of the Largo Helmchen must be declared a champion".

"Petrenko continues to favour the kind of lean, transparent textures, rhythmic spring and crisply aligned ensemble work associated with Szell, Zinman and Dausgaard, along with Abbado in his latter-day Mahler Chamber Orchestra recordings ... Giltburg enters with decisive upward scales that signify his attentive solo presence throughout ... There's no question that Giltburg and Petrenko's Beethoven cycle proudly holds its own next to superb recent versions".

"Editor's choice: Remember the Beethoven semiquincentennial? The 250th-birthday celebration ... One of the most exciting, fresh and downright beautiful projects originally planned to coincide with that birthday party has now reached completion ... Now, a year and a half later, the series wraps up with the release of the First and Third Concertos. It's been worth every second of the wait ... As a whole, these recordings stand as an important benchmark among original-instrument interpretations".

"So Karajan had a struggle on his hands. Thanks to patches of fine string-playing and the sheer force of his advocacy there are moments of greatness here in what is often a strangely costive realisation. Taking the orchestra forward from this pit of incomprehension to the multi-faceted splendours of the legendary 1965 DG Berlin Fifth was some journey".

"It is a coupling that makes audible sense ... A persuasive account, then [Mozart], with that of Beethoven's Third Concerto even more so: indeed, this is aguably the finest of recent years ... Those looking for a modern version of the Beethoven that touches all the bases will find none finer".

"The marriage of strength in exposition and sensitivity in accompaniment is more or less beyond compare ... This is the best of discs and the worst of discs, wisdom in Beethoven and in Mozart folly. But, rest assured, the Beethoven is not to be missed".