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Rachmaninov: Transcriptions, Corelli Variations
Cliburn Competition medallist Olga Kern plays Rachmaninov as if he wrote this music just for her. She's a virtuoso in the grand tradition, playing with a huge tone and brilliant fingerwork, captured with life-like realism by the engineers. The big work here is the Corelli Variations, a fiendishly difficult set of twenty variations on a Baroque sarabande, La Folia. The composer wrote it to wow his audiences, but it's also serious, full of with dark-toned poetry, serene lyricism, and a huge climax that ends in a poignant coda. Kern plays it with tremendous power and fleet agility. The rest of the disc consists of Rachmaninov's transcriptions of his own and other composers? music, ranging from romanticized Bach to an opulent rewrite of Schubert's Wohin? to his elaborate cadenza for Liszt?s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. Kern plays the Liszt with plenty of dash, evoking its gypsy flavor and exploiting its opportunities for virtuosity. Here's one competition winner who seems destined for stardom. -- Dan Davis
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Tracks| 1 | Preludio | | 2 | Gavotte | | 3 | Gigue | | 4 | Wohin? | | 5 | Lilacs Op. 21, No. 5 | | 6 | Scherzo | | 7 | Daisies Op. 38, No. 3 | | 8 | Liebeslied | | 9 | Liebesfreud | | 10 | Minuet | | 11 | Lullaby Op. 16, No. 1 | | 12 | Hopak | | 13 | Flight Of The Bumblebee | | 14 | Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 | | 15 | Variations On A Theme Of Corelli, Op. 42 |
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