Rachmaninov: Preludes for Piano (complete)
Eldar Nebolsin, piano
Naxos 8.570327
This is Naxos's second release of Rachmaninov preludes, the first coming some years ago as part of a full survey of Rachmaninov's piano works by the splendid Turkish pianist, Idil Biret. This recent issue features young Uzbek pianist Eldar Nebolsin, a First Prize winner at the Sviatoslav Richter International Piano Composition in 2005.
In spite of rather pointedly looking backward in his compositional outlook, Rachmaninov's piano works--the concertos especially, but the Etudes-tableaux and Preludes as well--have become entrenched near the top of the standard repertoire, music which is engaging and feeling while being quite accessible to the listening public. These pieces range from darkly ebullient to quintessential Russian despondency. He is criticized at times for being overly sentimental, but he sets his tone splendidly and I always find his emotional content convincing. (The Prelude Op. 32, No. 10 in b minor sounds like somebody's tragic whole life's story in five minutes.)
His writing shows his almost savant-like command of the keyboard, with the full resources of the modern concert grand piano confidently brought into play. I find I can lose several hours on YouTube watching pianists trying to come to grips with the technical demands of this music (it doesn't help that Rachmaninov had the hands of a giant). (An aside: Telarc put out a couple releases a decade or so ago where Rachmaninov's own piano rolls were processed by Wayne Stahnke to play on a modern Bosendorfer reproducing piano. And the results are damn-near the very resurrection of Rachmaninov's corpse. In addition to being known as one of the greatest technical pianists who ever lived, these recordings give us a definitive interpretation.)
Mr. Nebolsin has the full measure of this music, well able to cope with the technical difficulties without drawing attention to his mastery thereof. Naxos has given him first rate natural sound, making for a recording of these pieces which will stand next to Ashkenazy's, one I will listen to repeatedly. I look forward to (presumably) upcoming further releases from this pianist.
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