With this disc Boris Giltburg comes close to completing his recordings of Rachmaninov's solo piano music; only the Variations on a theme of Chopin and a scattering of miscellaneous works remain. This has been a triumphant series given with unwavering technical command, imaginative brio and, above all, burning commitment. Russian born but Israeli based, Giltburg has a born feel for Rachmaninov and this is never clearer than in the First Sonata(1907-1908), a magnificent if meandering masterpiece long neglected in favour of its later companion, the Second Sonata(1913, revised in 1931). As invariably with Rachmaninov, its composition cost him dearly, clouded by pervasive insecurity and misgivings. Easily distracted and misled by criticism he succumbed to depression and a view that the Sonata was too difficult, too long and, damningly, of 'dubious musical worth.'
Today, the Sonata has surfaced from obscurity, its former dismissal replaced with a sense of glory, its stature conveyed by Giltburg with a special sense of seething volcanic undercurrents blazing into elemental fury and, perhaps above all, and even more remarkably a complimentary awareness of Rachmaninov's ultra-Slavic form of polyphony(For Boris Berezovsky, who's own recording of the Sonata is long ripe for reissue, Rachmaninov was a Russian Bach). Giltburg's warmth and flexibility in the central Lento's euphoric lyricism tells once more of his love for Rachmaninov and never more so than in the coda's soaring and starry declamation. In the churning momentum if episodic finale the playing has all the vividness of a live performance ending in a coda where the pianist's thunder and opulence are awe-inspiring.
Many of the same virtues apply to the performance of the Second Sonata, though here I would take issue with Giltburg's 'full-throated advocacy for the 1931 revision of the original 1913 version. I recall talking to Alexis Weissenberg regarding his recording of the Sonatas and startling him with my reference to the first version. He had no idea that it existed. There is too greater removal of those chain-like sequences so central to Rachmaninov's thinking. The first version may meander but the revision's cutting and attempt at tightening up(inspired by the taut and cohesive structure of Chopin's B flat Minor Sonata) is drastic and severe, again, a cruel comment on the composer's lack of self-belief. For the greatest recording of the Second Sonat in its first version you will turn to Van Cliburn in a live and incomparable Moscow performance made during his early great if sadly un-sustained career.
More positively, Giltburg offers as a fascinating addition(too substantial to be considered an encore) his own transcription of the two-piano version by Georgy Kirkur of 'The Isle of the Dead,' a magnificently accomplished reworking of this sombre work with an increased sense of 'layering,' of the tone poem's original quality.
GIltburg includes his own long, personal and informative note. How intriguing to find that copies of Arnold Boklin's original painting, 'The Isle of the Dead,' were owned by Lenin, Freud and Hitler.
Bryce Morrison