Elizabeth Joy Roe, piano; London Symphony Orchestra with Emil Tabakov, conductor; Decca
Benjamin Britten’s Piano Concerto, composed in 1938 when he was only 25, has never been regarded as one of his best works, but based on this fine new recording, it may be time for a reassessment. Young American pianist Elizabeth Joy Roe, who made her New York concerto debut with this piece when she was a graduate student at Juilliard and has been playing the piece for at least 13 years, is easily able to deal with the technical challenges of Britten’s concerto and finds just the right tempo and tonal quality for every episode in the work. Bulgarian conductor Emil Tabakov has the LSO on its toes from beginning to end, and the recording quality is superb.
Britten’s Piano Concerto is often enigmatic, especially in its use of waltzes and marches, which means that there is much more for the listener to “get” on repeated hearings. In his book on Britten (J.M. Dent, 1981), music critic Michael Kennedy finds the piece ultimately unsuccessful; I beg to differ and suggest that listeners give it a fair hearing – they might be pleasantly surprised. In my opinion, it is one of the great piano concertos of the Twentieth Century.
The Barber Piano Concerto, a somewhat thorny piece and certainly more difficult to play than the Britten, because of its chromaticism, was written for pianist John Browning, who was authoritative and commanding in both of the exceptionally good recordings he did of the work, the first with Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra in 1964 and the second with Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony in 1991.
In this new London Symphony version of the Barber with Elizabeth Roe, one hears more orchestral detail, but Roe’s performance is somewhat disappointing in comparison with that of Browning. She seems tentative in the opening solo of the piece, and at the beginning of the last movement, somewhat reticent, whereas Browning beats out the 5/8 rhythms in the left hand with tremendous power.
The CD is filled out with solo piano nocturnes by each composer; in these, Roe is in her element, playing very sensitively and beautifully.
Available now via iTunes and Amazon.com.
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