COMPOSERS: Gershwin
LABELS: Virgin
WORKS: Variations on ‘I Got Rhythm’; Piano Concerto; Rhapsody in Blue; Second Rhapsody
PERFORMER: Wayne Marshall (piano)Aalborg SO
CATALOGUE NO: VM 5 61478 2
Wayne Marshall is perhaps best known as a ‘serious’ organist, but one never feels that this is a classical musician slumming it: whatever he does is heartfelt and fitting. Having said that, things take time to get off the ground. An uneasily paced I Got Rhythm Variations is followed by a Rhapsody in Blue nearly as fast as Gershwin’s own breakneck piano roll recording; some may find Marshall’s capricious and playful performance a little excessive. But in the Piano Concerto, everything comes right. Marshall plays and directs with unimpeachable understanding and authority, weighing perfectly the concerto’s seductive, exotic scents against its blues and jazz structures. Christopher Wood
Gershwin: Variations on 'I Got Rhythm'; Piano Concerto; Rhapsody in Blue; Second Rhapsody
Wayne Marshall is perhaps best known as a ‘serious’ organist, but one never feels that this is a classical musician slumming it: whatever he does is heartfelt and fitting. Having said that, things take time to get off the ground. An uneasily paced I Got Rhythm Variations is followed by a Rhapsody in Blue nearly as fast as Gershwin’s own breakneck piano roll recording; some may find Marshall’s capricious and playful performance a little excessive. But in the Piano Concerto, everything comes right.
Our rating
4
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:39 pm