In his lifetime Sergei Rachmaninov was seen as misery guts personified: there was the infamous scowl memorably derided by Stravinsky, together with a long history dating back to his First Symphony of pessimism and gloom about the direction of travel. This extended to and through the period when he conceived his Piano Concerto no. 4 in G minor. In 1926, after spending two years battling over the details, he summed up the basic problem: “I feel like a ghost wandering a world grown alien.” It then took another 15 years for the third and final revision, the one most often played today, to emerge.
Even in the 150th anniversary year of Rachmaninov’s birth, comparatively little attention has been accorded to a work which he himself described as “not a concerto for piano, but a concerto for piano and orchestra.” All the more welcome then that Anna Vinnitskaya, with Juraj Valčuha directing the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, breathed much new life into this neglected piece. Valčuha and his soloist worked very much hand-in-glove, relishing the strength and muscle but also capriciousness of a work in which thematic variations are central to its character. You noticed it in the way the dead ringer for Three Blind Mice in the central Largo was voiced with a touch of opulence by the strings before Vinnitskaya added just a hint of menace to her own iteration. She was very much alive to the constant shifts in mood and texture, producing taut darts and quivers that merged seamlessly into powerful helter-skelter runs, sometimes at breakneck speeds, yet not stinting either on the dreamy lusciousness that is so quintessentially Rachmaninov.
At the start of the Finale I caught myself thinking that Sergei Prokofiev could just as easily have been the progenitor, with military flourishes from the brass, a delight in syncopation and a carnivalesque display of sonority and colour. But then there were the moments in which Rachmaninov clearly asserted his own identity, like the brief episode for growling low trombones and bassoons offset by the crystalline clarity of the piano line. Simplicity yet sophistication were characteristics of Vinnitskaya’s playing, not least in her encore, itself a tribute to another master of the keyboard: she played the Romance, the third of seven Dances of the Dolls which Shostakovich originally wrote as compositions for children in 1951.
Darkness of style was what Valčuha found in Prokofiev’s Symphony no. 5 in B flat major. He had an eye for the shadows and sombre reaches of this piece, relishing the ghostliness of some of the pizzicatos, and taking a very spacious view of the opening movement, so much so that tension often slackened. When it came, the coda was meaty and weighty, but for all the security of the brass playing it lacked an essential sharpness, a sardonic twist. This had too much plumminess at its core.
By contrast, the Scherzo had plenty of momentum, the chattering woodwind and buzzing strings setting up patterns of urgency which the later trumpets developed in intensity. For all the attention Valčuha paid to the colouring of this movement, I just wish there had been a bit more snarling and spitting from the heavy brass to complement the dance-like swirls from the strings.
The F major Adagio opened up a rich tonal palette, the woodwind conjuring up the spookiness of the night, tuba, harp and piano always nicely in the picture, with a collective wailing of the full orchestra at its soaring climax. Valčuha was always an alert, controlling presence on the podium. What I missed, especially in the Finale, was an ability to let go.
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