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Guilty Pleasures - Boris Berezovsky's Ravel Recital · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

• 0:07
  This is Jed Disler, and welcome to The Piano
• 0:11
  Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
• 0:14
  Consider taking out a paid subscription to The
• 0:18
  Piano Maven, and you can do so by going to the
• 0:22
  link to my Substack page, which is in the episode
• 0:25
  description. Paid subscribers get free downloads
• 0:29
  at the beginning of each month, advance notices
• 0:32
  about upcoming episodes, and from time to time,
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  we will have a Zoom chat where we can talk about
• 0:39
  all things piano. So do consider a paid subscription
• 0:44
  because that will help keep this podcast alive
• 0:48
  and afloat. Back in 2012, Warner Classics brought
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  out a box set containing 10 CDs that purported
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  to be pianist Boris Berezovsky's complete recordings
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  for the Teldeck label. Well, the box simply bore
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  the title, The Teldeck Recordings, and seeing
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  the... definite article, the, implied to me,
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  of course, that this was indeed a complete run
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  of Berezovsky's Teldeck recordings. Or, as Ed
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  McMahon would have said to Johnny Carson during
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  a desk spot on The Tonight Show, somehow you
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  managed to get everything that Boris Berezovsky
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  ever recorded for Teldeck. Every single recording
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  he made for that label, each and every one, is
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  covered right here in this box. And then Johnny
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  Carson would turn around to Ed and say, You are
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  wrong, Elk Breath. Or maybe in this case, he
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  might say, You are wrong, Lola Astanova Breath.
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  You know Lola Astanova, you know that YouTube
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  pianist who wears skimpy outfits when she plays.
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  Anyway, the point is... is that in this box set,
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  they left out one disc. They left out Boris Berezovsky's
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  1994 Maurice Ravel recital featuring Gaspard
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  Delannoy, the Sonatine, Valse Nobel et Sentimentale,
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  and La Valse. And by gum, this is actually one
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  of Boris Berezovsky's best... and just why they
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  did not include this in his allegedly complete
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  Teldeck recordings box is beyond me. Now, is
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  this the best Ravel disc ever made or the most
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  textually faithful or most stylistically astute
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  Ravel playing? Not on your life, but... I have
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  to tell you, it is so much fun to listen to.
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  This disc has long been one of my guilty pleasures,
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  so I'm going to use it to launch a little mini
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  -series from time to time devoted to my guilty
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  pleasures in piano releases. Now, this particular
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  release will send Ravel purists ducking for cover,
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  but, you know, I just can't resist it. In Gaspard
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  de Lanouy, Andine is not so much seductive as
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  it is predatory. Let's put it that way. Dynamics
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  are often the opposite of what Ravel indicates
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  in Les Gibets. And at the outset of Scarbo, which
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  is flamboyant and diabolical in Berezovsky's
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  hands, it's almost in the evil Pogorelich class,
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  technically. There are all kinds of rhythmic
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  hesitations and reverse accents and weird attention
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  -getting voicings, and I love every second of
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  it. I mean, I said it was a guilty pleasure,
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  right? La Valse also goes its own way, meaning
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  it goes Berezovsky's way, which means that instead
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  of getting a nostalgic look at old Vienna through
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  a French filter, you basically get a Tim Burton
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  horror movie in pianistic form. And in the Sonatine,
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  you get this... odd kind of détaché articulation
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  in the minuet, as if Boris Berezovsky was not
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  so much doing a courtly dance as he was performing
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  an autopsy. And his rapid, dry articulation in
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  the concluding anime movement is quite a delight,
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  actually, and it is so full of character. I mean,
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  you just can't resist it when you hear it. And
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  a lot of idiosyncratic phrasings and unusual
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  tempo choices and accentuations in the Valse
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  Nobel et Saint -Amantin bring out a latent humor
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  in this work that one does not always hear in
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  more conventional interpretations. I think...
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  Berezovsky's interpretation is rather unusual,
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  to say the least, but it is always interesting,
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  and one should hear it only if one already knows
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  this piece from a relatively quote -unquote normal.
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  recording, such as the new Jean -Eflin Bavouzé
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  remake on Chandos, or Abby Simon's recording,
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  or the long -held Arthur Rubinstein reference
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  version of this piece. And don't forget Jean
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  -Yves Thibaudet. He is marvelous in the Valse
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  Nobel and really in everything else in Ravel.
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  And you know that recording that Emmanuel Axe
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  made of the Valse Nobel de Saint -Amanton in
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  the 1970s for RCA? This is a recording that's
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  always gotten overlooked. He coached this work,
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  actually, with Arthur Rubinstein, and he builds
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  upon the Rubinstein interpretation in certain
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  ways. But if you want your Ravel piano music
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  to be... entertaining, first and foremost. And
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  you have to remember that often the surface is
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  the style in Ravel. Then try to get a hold of
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  the Boris Berezovsky Ravel disc. I turn to this
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  disc very much in the way that I turn to the
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  Georges Chiffre Chopin etudes or that 1983 Andrei
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  Gavrilov -Rachmaninoff recital on EMI. And these
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  discs are also guilty pleasures of mine. So is
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  the Mozart sonata cycle of Glenn Gould. And we
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  will talk about these on future episodes where
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  I discuss guilty pleasures. So what are your
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  piano guilty pleasures? I'd like to know. Shoot
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  me a message. In the meantime, do look for Boris
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  Berezovsky playing Ravel, because you'll get
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  a big kick out of this disc. And to quote my
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  friend David Hurwitz, this is really fun to listen
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  to. Hey, and it really is. This is Jed Disler,
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  and you've been listening to The Piano Maven,
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  your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
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  And I look forward to being with you for our
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  next episode.