Rimski-Korsakoff set down his memoirs he was hard put to remember when he wrote his one piano concerto. He admitted that “I cannot clearly recall exactly when I conceived the thought of setting to work on the piano concerto, nor when the concerto was finally ready and orchestrated.” Reflecting on the season of 1882-83 he does remember jotting down “the sketch of a piano concerto in C sharp minor on a Russian theme, chosen not without Balakirev’s advice. In all ways the concerto proved a chip from Liszt’s concertos. It must be said that it sounded beauti- ful and proved entirely satisfactory in the sense of piano technique and style; this greatly astonished Balakirev, who found my concerto to his liking. He had by no means expected that I, who was not a pianist, should know how to compose anything entirely pianistic.” This influence, though important in Rimsky’s over-all development, was a temporary one, and took quite a long time to develop. In his autobiography, Rimsky recalls that as a boy of fifteen, he developed a passion for symphonic music by playing four-hand piano versions of the symphonies of Beethoven and the overtures of Mendelssohn and Mozart. But he says : “Liszt I did not understand.” One of his works “left on me the impression of something vague and queer.” In time, however, Rimsky-Korsakoff was to adopt Liszt’s aesthetic approach, as this concerto so well demonstrates. superficially, the resemblances will be found in the manner in which Rimsky employs the piano, particularly in the upper registers, and in his use of thundering octave passages. These will inevitably bring to mind similar passages in Liszt’s E-Flat Concerto. More basic, however, is the entire concept upon which the concerto is based. The work might be considered a fantasy on the single Russian theme, in one movement, but with subdivisions of tempo that correspond to the usual three movement concerto form. Just as in the symphonic poem of Liszt, this concerto consists of a series of transformations of the ideas contained in these motives, which are announced at the very beginning of the work.
(From the original Liner Notes)
Paul Badura-Skoda
Plays
Rimski-Korsakov
Franck
Scriabine
Tracks
Nikolai Rimski-Kordsakov
(1844-1908)
Piano Concerto in C-Sharp minor, Op. 30
1 I. Moderato — Allegretto quasi polacca 5:57
2 II. Andante mosso 3:30
3 III. Allegro 3:47
César Franck
(1822-1890)
Variations Symphoniques
4 I. Poco allegro 3:53
5 II. Allegretto quasi andante 6:54
6 III. Allegro non troppo 4:13
Alexandre Scriabin
(1871-1915)
Piano Concerto in F-Sharp minor, Op. 20
7 I. Allegro 5:18 7:32
8 II. Andante 8:40
9 III. Allegro moderato 11:24
*
Paul Badura Skoda - p
Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London/Artur Rodzinski - dir.
Vienna Symphony Orchestra/Henry Swoboda - dir. [Scriabin]
Recorded ca 1968