Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This afternoon I put on this recording of Rachmaninov, thinking I could use a little background music as I cleaned the living room. It stopped me dead in my tracks. For the next half hour (it was the third concerto) I sat on the coffee table, clutching my dust rag and muttering an occasional "my god!" I am tempted to heap adjectives on this performance: focused, driving, powerful, intense, masterful. But there is only one which does it justice: Russian. Those long, long sweeping phrases, that amazing build-up of tension, like a kazatske that goes faster, and faster, until you drop of exhaustion. Only Rachmaninov isn't going faster; he simply isn't letting up. He doesn't let you lean back and rest, even in his tender moments. When you hear him play, you lean forward, you hold your breath, you close your eyes, and you try to hang on. When it comes to performances, everyone has his or her own preference. Some like the drama of Horowitz, the lyricism of Andsnes, the intensity of Argerich. But after listening to Rachmaninov himself, Andsnes sounds like he's on valium, Argerich is playing a rather choppy tango, and poor, dear, David Helfgott is playing chopsticks. Even Horowitz sounds a little heavy, as if he were playing the theme to "As the World Turns." As a musician I know what it is to strive for perfection, to work for hours on nuancing a phrase. You play your fingers off, and your heart out, and then, suddenly (and all too infrequently) everything drops away and you are no longer playing. You are the music. What Rachmaninov has, and what leaves everyone else producing slightly fuzzy copies of the original, is that transcendental quality of truth. And that is what I heard today-not a man playing a concerto, but a concerto playing a man.