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Title: Not sure I agree with the reviews here...
Review: I'm not sure I agree with the reviews here... To me, Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto is one of those strongly Russian pieces that loses a lot of its vigor if its Slavic edge is muted, as it is in this recording. Fritz Reiner conducts the orchestra with leaden overstatement, as if it were Brahms or Wagner or some other Germanic composer. Van Cliburn gives a typically energetic performance, but in my mind it lacks the Slavic edge that you hear in, e.g., Rachmaninov's own performance of the piece. It's too optimistic and not harsh enough--in short, it's too American and insufficiently Russian.To me, Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto here is even more obviously lacking. The orchestra and Van Cliburn clearly fail to play together more than once. RCA seems to have added this recording as padding to fill the CD--don't treat it as anything else.
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