Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff: The 4 Piano Concertos
Unlike most composer/pianists, Rachmaninoff's instrumental prowess was  fully commensurate with his creative gifts. He embraces his youthful First Concertos as if  he had encountered an old lover, consumating his passion with stupefying fingerwork in  the first movement cadenza. Conversely, the composer seems bored in the Third. He  laconically dispatches its torrents of notes, opts for the easier ossias in difficult passages,  and makes cuts in the first and third movements. And pianists like Arturo Michelangeli  and Earl Wild have recorded more incisive, demonic Rach Fourths. No question about  the Paganini Rhapsody and Second Concerto, where Rachmaninoff's fierce authority and  luscious, molten tone permeate every bar. RCA's transfers, however, could have been  better.--Jed Distler