Good Things in Small Packages

By Michael Walsh

Faster than anyone had predicted, digital compact disks are revolutionizing the classical record industry. From nothing just two years ago, sales grew to 5.2 million disks last year; in recent months, the Polygram complex of classical labels (Deutsche Grammophon, Philips and London) took in about as much money in CD sales in the U.S. as it did from LPs and tapes combined. Superior in almost every respect to conventional records, CDs will send the LP the way of the 78 within the next decade, possibly sooner.

The first wave of CDs featured orchestral blockbusters to show off the digital sound's wide dynamic range. The true test of recording technology, however, is the piano. Wow, flutter and tape hiss--ills that LPs are heir to --are all magnified in piano music, but they are drastically reduced, if not entirely eliminated, with CDs. And while flat-earthers may still decry what they hear as a clinical, metallic quality in digital CD recordings, such reservations will disappear as recording engineers adapt their techniques to the demands of the new medium. The best of the current CD piano releases:

Beethoven: The Five Piano Concertos; Six Bagatelles, Op. 126; Andante Favori; "Fur Elise." Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano, with Zubin Mehta conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; London, 4 CDs. Despite its familiarity, the cycle of Beethoven concertos remains a severe test of mettle for pianists, as well as a handy yardstick for audiences with which to measure them. From the idiosyncratic classicism of the Second, which was the first in order of composition, to the incipient romanticism of the Emperor, the last, is a span of some 20 years but the musical journey of a lifetime.

Ashkenazy takes an elegant approach to the cycle, caressing the music with an exquisite tone and spinning it out with an effortless technique that lets the music speak unimpeded. In the robust First Concerto and the rippling Second, Ashkenazy pays homage to the music's Mozartean wellspring in a clean, carefully articulated reading. The Third Concerto finds him in a more passionate, but still fundamentally classic, mood; the piece was, after all, written around 1800, while Beethoven's teacher Haydn was still alive. The revolutionary Fourth Concerto, in which the piano daringly speaks before the orchestra, gets an introspective, reflective performance in keeping with its contemplative nature. Only in the Fifth Concerto does Ashkenazy's rectitude inhibit him from the kind of large-scale reading the Emperor can support, yet his nimble style is fully in keeping with his restrained approach to the cycle as a whole. Mehta and the silken Vienna Philharmonic prove ideal partners in the venture.

Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 13 in C Major, K. 415, and 15 in B-Flat Major, K. 450. Malcolm Bilson, fortepiano, with John Eliot Gardiner conducting the English Baroque Soloists; Archiv. Having started with the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the original-instruments movement has now worked its way through the baroque to classicism and early romanticism in an effort to discover what the music of these eras sounded like to the people of the time. Bilson is a leading exponent of the fortepiano, the gentler forerunner of the modern piano; together with Conductor Gardiner, he makes a strong case for authenticity with a pair of gracious performances.

( Mozart: Three Concerti, K. 107; J.S. Schroter: Piano Concerto in C Major, Op. 3, No. 3 (cadenzas by Mozart). Murray Perahia, pianist and conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra; CBS Masterworks. On the other hand, there is still room for Mozart on modern instruments, especially when it is performed by Murray Perahia. Only 38, he has already established himself as one of the most important pianists of the day. His cycle of the Mozart concertos, in which he both plays the piano and conducts, is a model of intelligent musicmaking. His reading of three early Mozart concertos is marked by taste and tact; a bonus is the inclusion of a concerto by the obscure Johann Samuel Schroter, a German who worked in London during the 18th century.

Chopin: Mazurkas, Waltzes, Polonaises. Ivan Moravec, piano; Vox Cum Laude. Listening to Moravec play is like being serenaded by your best friend: the Czech pianist is a selfless interpreter who seeks to persuade rather than stun his audiences. But a Moravec recital is among the most rewarding there is. On this disk, his sense of style is evident in every note, from the gentle whispers of the mazurkas to the lusty cries of the polonaises.

Satie: Early Piano Works. Reinbert de Leeuw, piano; Philips. "I came into the world very young, in a time which is very old," Satie once noted in a famous, and accurate, bon mot. Although the French eccentric enjoyed a vogue in the early '70s, his aesthetic is really more suited to the minimalist '80s, for Satie's music is as extreme as anything by Philip Glass or Steve Reich. Marked by repetition of simple materials, it has no conventional structure or harmonic progression, just a ruminative modality that conveys an archaic, otherworldly air. Yet the music has an undeniable beauty. De Leeuw, a composer and pianist who is a leading musical figure in his native Holland, unfolds the music as if he were spinning a yarn for a cultivated audience sitting before a roaring fire.

Granados: Seis Piezas Sobre Cantos Populares Espanoles; Allegro de Concierto; Escenas Romanticas. Alicia de Larrocha, piano; London. Completely at home in the international repertory, De Larrocha is also a great regionalist, performing the music of her Spanish homeland with affection and understanding and offering rare insight for non-Iberians into a culture that lies off the main track of European musical history. An exhilarating work like Seis Piezas (Six Pieces on Spanish Popular Songs), with its frank evocation of flamenco | rhythms, is almost stereotypically Spanish, while the Escenas Romanticas is an ardent if slightly derivative suite that tips its cap to both Chopin and Schumann. The disk's highlight is the Allegro de Concierto, a grand virtuoso exercise in the Continental manner that ought to be heard in the concert hall more often.