Rachmaninov: Etudes-Tableaux

While there is no knowing what whimsy prompted the fine fellows from the reissue department of EMI to release Vladimir Ovchinnikov's 1989 recording of both sets of Rachmaninov's Etudes-Tableaux in its "encore" series, one can only be grateful it did. Along with rereleasing both Richter's sublime Schumann disc and Barenboim's abysmal Beethoven disc, EMI has released for the first time this vivid and virtuosic Rachmaninov recording by Ovchinnikov.

While recordings of all the Etudes-Tableaux are rare, recordings of all of them that are any good are even rarer. Even the best of them -- Ashkenazy's soulful but sometimes clattering recording and Shelley's brilliant but sometimes brittle recording -- leave something to be desired. But out of left field, Ovchinnikov does the impossible feat of being both evocative and virtuosic. While Rachmaninov repressed their programs, his Etudes-Tableaux are as much evocative as they are virtuosic and Ovchinnikov uses the latter to express the former and the result is as convincing pictorially as it is compelling technically. While not the greatest recordings of any of the Etudes-Tableaux ever made -- there are, after all, Richter's excerpts to consider -- Ovchinnikov's recording is perhaps the greatest recording of all of the Etudes-Tableaux. EMI's sound is just a wee bit close, but it is very, very immediate.