I've come across this brilliant and deeply felt performance of Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto quite by chance - I ordered second-hand CD of Argerich playing the concerto, but this one came by mistake. When I played it, I was pleasantly surprised by the poetic beauty and depth of this unknown pianist's interpretation. There are loads of pianists technically superior than this pianist, but the sheer musicality of his playing makes it captivating. Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra engages in a true partnership with the pianist. Tempest and Polonaise & Waltz are equally impressive. Like so many of other Eastern European orchestras, I get an impression that the music comes from their heart.

Joseph Banowetz : piano

Ondrej Lenard / Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra

Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto No.1

The Tempest

Eugene Onegin - Polonaise & Waltz

Joseph Banowetz

Joseph Banowetz is internationally recognized as an artist whose performances of the Romantic literature of the piano have earned the highest critical acclaim. Fanfare Record Magazine (U.S.A.) termed him one of "the pre-eminent 'three B's' of Liszt Playing."

Born in the United States, part of Banowetz's early training was received in New York City with Carl Friedberg, a pupil of Clara Schumann. After continuing his studies at Vienna's Hochschule fuer Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Banowetz's career was launched upon his graduating with a First Prize in piano. He was then sent by the Austrian government on an extended European concert tour. Subsequently he has performed throughout North America, Europe, Russia, and Asia. In 1966 he was awarded the Pan American Prize by the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C.

Following his first appearances in the Orient in 1981, Banowetz's tours there have received ever-increasing enthusiastic response. He is the first foreign artist ever to be invited by the Chinese Ministry of Culture both to record and to give world premiere performances of a contemporary Chinese piano concerto (Huang An-Iun Piano Concerto, Op. 25b). Banowetz has recorded with the CSR Symphony Orchestra, the Budapest Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the China Central Opera Orchestra of Beijing.

What makes this Naxos CD susceptible to being marked down is, in the first instance, the recorded sound, which is pale and rather distant and has the effect of nullifying any enthusiasm that the musicians may have brought to the recording sessions. The Piano Concerto is played comparatively rapidly, and Joseph Banowetz, while demonstrating his virtuoso abilities with regard to moving his fingers over the keyboard, seems (to me, at any rate) to fail to differentiate between the differing moods that the music would have been able to evoke if only he had varied his tempi somewhat. A comparison with the equally low-priced 1983 digital recording with Viktoria Postnikova and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Gennadi Rozhdestvensky (on Decca) makes it plain that this music has so much more intensity, so much more color, so much more in the way of variety and message than Banowetz/Lénard are able to conjure up.

Tchaikovsky's 'Tempest' after Shakespeare is an evocative piece that is here played acceptably by the CSR Symphony Orchestra, but again the pale, somewhat cavernous sound fails to do the performance justice. And the excerpts from 'Eugen Onegin' just do not bear comparison with the recently re-released version by the Berlin Philharmonic directed by Herbert von Karajan (1972, Deutsche Grammophon).