Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2; Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 33 – Boris Giltburg

   in Piano International (Nov, 2017)
Any new recording of Rachmaninov’s evergreen and omnipresent Second Concerto has to contend with 280 or so competitors listed on Presto Classical’s website. Most – even fine versions – are lost in the weft; even with the Naxos label this is one of 13 recordings in a variety of formats, including undeniably valuable historical issues.

Giltburg is a sensitive musician who constructs interesting programmes, as his previous issues of Rachmaninov and Shostakovich have shown. Staying within the Naxos stable for a moment, this new account of the concerto is the front-runner amongst their modern recordings, the sound richer than its predecessors and the performance more compelling. The main coupling of the …