Both Kabalevsky concertos seem to be coming back into favour - rightly, for they are works that improve on better acquaintance. Some years ago Yo-Yo Ma recorded the First with Ormandy (CBS), a delightful piece which has much charm, and there are now two versions of the Second on CD. This is a more ambitious work, composed in 1964 for Daniel Shafran, who subsequently recorded it in 1969 with the composer (EMI Melodiya). Looking back, I see that I thought it "the best of his works so far made available in the West though I realize this may be interpreted as a pretty backhanded compliment". Shafran certainly played it with tremendous fervour and warmth, and in reviewing the Raphael Wallfisch Chandos disc listed above, SJ thought the concerto ''a strong and obviously highly personal work, despite a lingering flavour of Shostakovich and occasional leanings towards cinematic grandiloquence''. I find the flavour stronger than lingering and there are passages which could have come out of Prokofiev.
However, idiom apart, it is a deeply-felt piece and rings true, there is an awareness of tragedy and passion that does not often find a place in his world and Kabalevsky touches a richer vein of feeling than in the Second Symphony and the Third Piano Sonata. Yet to be fully convincing, it must be played with a total dedication, intensity and commitment, as it was by Wallfisch - and is for that matter, by Steven Isserlis. Wallfisch is slightly broader and darker in the opening pages but Isserlis is hardly less intense and his playing is invariably distinguished by lively imagination and keen musical intelligence. He and Andrew Litton make out a strong and positive case for this powerful piece and few collectors investing in their reading will be disappointed, particularly as it is superbly recorded by the Virgin team. Detail is present and the perspective between soloist and orchestra is well judged.
Wallfisch coupled his account of the work with Glazunovss Chant du menestral and the Khachaturian Concerto, a post-war work dating from 1946. Although there are some imaginative things in it and the orchestral writing is expert enough, the latter is not a strong work. Isserlis gives us the Prokofiev Solo Sonata, listed in Grove as Op. 134. However, as the Concertino for two pianos, Op. 133 survives only in fragmentary sketches, the editors of the Soviet Complete Edition have allotted its opus number to the Sonata. That work has been put into performing shape by Vladimir Blok, but was not publicly given until Natalia Gutman took it up in the early 1970s. By the time of his death Prokofiev had made progress only on the first of the four movements he was planning, getting as far as the development and leaving sketches for the remainder of the movement. Thus, the last half is pretty conjectural though it all sounds characteristic of late Prokofiev. This is its only recording and Isserlis plays with real flair and persuasion.
The only other version of the Concertino was a 1971 performance by Lev Yevgrafov with Moscow Radio forces under Algis Zuriatis (EMI Melodiya). A fine player, Yevgrafov finds a greater sense of forward movement in the opening Andante than Isserlis, though the latter, it must be said, has the stronger personality. All the same, there is a danger in too measured an approach. One can easily lose sight of the fact that this is a concertino rather than a full-blown concerto. Prokofiev's aim after all, was "a delicate little concertino", and there are moments in Isserlis's account of this movement when I wonder whether his approach is not too weighty. Those who know the earlier recording will notice that there are some changes in Kabalevsky's orchestration and there is an imaginative cadenza by the young Finnish pianist, Olli Mustonen. The finale which makes use, I suspect, of 'leftovers', variations on a theme used in the Sinfonia Concertante, greatly benefits from the re-touchings in scoring.
The Concertino is not good Prokofiev but it is ultimately more interesting than the Khachaturian Concerto. I wish that Wallfisch had given us the elegiac Miaskovsky Concerto instead: perhaps the success of the present recording will encourage Virgin to record that poignant work with Isserlis. The orchestral playing under Andrew Litton is first class, the woodwind producing an agreeably astringent Prokofievian sonority. An impressive issue that calls for congratulations all round.
Robert Layton
Gramophone, March 1990