This all started with a "Consumer Guide" I wrote for the Village Voice, New York's big alternative weekly. I listened to 17 recordings of this suddenly popular concerto, and wrote 17 quick paragraphs, with a grade attached to each one. Poor David Helfgott got an F; Vladimir Horowitz got an A, for his version with Fritz Reiner conducting. (Though a later Horowitz release, a live performance with Eugene Ormandy, only got C+.) You can read this adventure, right here on this site. Much later -- and by a happy coincidence -- I was asked to write about the concerto once again, this time for the Los Angeles Times. In fact, I was asked to defend it against critical attacks, which I was happy to do. The more I listened to it, for my Voice consumer guide, the more I loved it. And I enlisted two very articulate pianists to help me defend it -- Alexander Toradze, and Byron Janis. This piece, too, is available here. But you want to hear the music -- my comparisons of six pianists playing the same Rach 3 excerpt. Click the RA icons below to hear the pianist of your choice, and if you have RealAudio 3.0 or higher installed on your computer you'll hear the excerpts "streaming" down the Internet in real time. What are you hearing? A climactic passage from the first movement, one that tests a pianist's power, passion, and delicacy. Note the timings -- even before you hear a note, they give you a big, broad hint about how each of these people plays:. (If you have technical problems hearing the music in real time, you can download it, and play it at your leisure, using the RealAudio player. Just click the "download" link at the end of each comment.)

Vladimir Horowitz (48 seconds)

A 1951 recording, with Fritz Reiner conducting the RCA Victor Symphony, on Horowitz Plays Rachmaninoff (RCA 7754-2-RG). Nobody blends such overwhelming force with such clarity, or with a piano sound that stays so rich and warm, even when excitement mounts. Download (93k)

Vladimir Ashkenazy (53 seconds)

With Andre Previn conducting the London Symphony, a 1972 recording (London 417 764-2, coupled with Ashkenazy playing five Rachmaninoff preludes). Very much in the Horowitz tradition, though Ashkenazy's style might be even grander. Certainly he takes more time, and gives nearly every major detail lots of extra weight. Download (104k)

Earl Wild (41 seconds)

A different kind of reading, from 1966, with the extraordinary Jascha Horenstein conducting the Royal Philharmonic (available in several versions; the best might be Chandos Chan 6507, where it's coupled with the Second Piano Concerto). Pianist and conductor sweep through the passage in a single breath. I might miss Horowitz's romantic detail, but the performance takes my breath away. Download (80k)

Jean-Yves Thibaudet (48 seconds)

With Ashkenazy -- yes, the pianist -- conducting the Cleveland Orchestra (coupled with Rachmaninoff's first concerto on London 448 219-2). To my taste, this 1995 recording is the best of the modern versions. Thibaudet doesn't play with the light and shade of the old romantic school, but in sheer strength and command -- grandeur, even -- he's the equal of any pianist here. If the excerpt here seems deficient in poetry, listen to the complete performance to see how understanding, commitment, and sheer virtuosity make an impact of their own. Download (96k)

I interviewed Thibaudet for a piece I published in the Wall Street Journal on April 28. He seems to be a sweet man, wonderfully flirtatious and informal. Among other things, we talked about this recording, and Thibaudet told me -- with disarming honesty -- that he's "reassured" by Rachmaninoff's own version, which (as you'll hear below) is in its own way pretty cerebral. (You can read my Thibaudet piece right here on my site.)

David Helfgott (49 seconds)

Live 1995 performance. Milan Horvat conducts the Copenhagen Philharmonic (RCA 74321-40378-2.). With the Rachmaninoff second sonata, and four preludes. Helfgott gets the notes out in this excerpt; elsewhere he's not so lucky. But notice how little he does with the music; he plays it almost like a child. Listen especially to the tempo change right before the fadeout, where Thibaudet, for instance, takes immediate charge of the music's new direction, and Horowitz adds a a sense of impish playfulness. With Helfgott, it has no character at all. Download (98k)

Sergei Rachmaninoff (40 seconds)

If we held a play-it-like-the-composer contest, the winners would be Thibaudet and Earl Wild, because Rachmaninoff, too, takes this passage in a single surge. He makes the music flow more naturally than anyone -- hey, he wrote it! -- and might outdo even Horowitz in sheer power and depth of sound. But he doesn't sound like he cares very much. The tempo change sounds alert, but almost brutally matter-of-fact. With Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra, on the two-CD Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff, which gives you all four piano concerti and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. The Second Concerto, in a 1929 performance with Stokowski conducting, is a melting standout (RCA 09026-61658-2). Download (78k)

Martha Argerich (41 seconds)

I've added this by popular demand -- every month or so someone e-mails to ask why Argerich's recording isn't here. And really I should have added it long before, since this version of the concerto is so famous. I have to say, though, that I don't care for it. Argerich, to me, sounds overexcited, even frenzied, and above all not centered anywhere in the piece. Every passage  seems equally intense (more or less), and so I get tired listening. This excerptturns out to demonstrate some of what I'm saying. Note the heated pauses before big chords as the melody subsides. To some people, I'm sure, these make the passage wild and exciting, demonstrating the passion and sincerity people love Argerich for. To me, the pauses are overdone, and the chords sound bangy. Compare, for a polar opposite, the Earl Wild version, which -- flowing and uncomplicated, but still exciting -- sounds, very simply, like music. Download (84k)

Do you agree? Disagree? Write to me and let me know.

copyright © 1997, 1999 by Greg Sandow