Sony's 3 CD release of Misha Dichter's complete RCA recordings, made between 1966-69, remembers a pianist whose performances were blessed with an exhilarating strength and clarity and always with a natural, unforced instinct for poetry. And here, whether in Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky or Stravinsky he remains vividly in touch with the composer's inner pulse and spirit.
What pellucid tone, gracious and musiciamly phrasing in Beethoven's 'Andante favori,' the composer's first delectably florid first thoughts for his 'Waldstein' Sonata before they were altered to the mysterious and austere 'Adagio molto!' And if, as Dichter claims, Schubert's A major Sonata K.959 is 'what Paradise looks like' his performance is alive with an acute sense of darker imaginings. There is a powerful charge to the opening salvo and in the 'Andantino' he leaves you in no doubt concerning the nature of writing of a startling modernity and violence. He is less playful and more driven than, say, Radu Lupu, in the third movement Scherzo, less leisurely, more fast-flowing in the finale. There is always a sense of urgency, of 'times winged chariot hurrying near.' Even when compared with many celebrated recordings ranging from Schnabel to Volodos(whose performance prompted a colleague to question whether Schubert could perhaps be made too beautiful, a question you would never ask Dichter) this performance stands out for its unwavering vision and integrity.
Dichter's selection of Brahms late autumnal masterpieces is again memorable. He finds all of the drama and abrupt subsidence in the opening Intermezzo of opus 118 , that sudden calming of an elemental rage, all of the bitter-sweet poetry of opus 118 No 2 and opus 116 No 4. There is an apt touch of wildness in the agitation of the Capriccio opus 76 No 5 and an unerring sense of line and purpose in the opus 119 E flat Rhapsody, Brahms heroic farewell to the keyboard. Grateful for what is available I sorely miss completed sets by such a committed Brahmsian, of music once described a 'like the golden lustre of parks in autumn and the austere black and white of winter walks.'
Then there is Tchaikovsky's First Concerto and music that won Dichter the silver medal in Moscow in 1966. And so it is hardly surprising to hear playing, superbly partnered by Eric Leinsdorf and the Boston Philharmonic, of an unwavering authority. Here is all of Dichter's strength and impetus; no time for tinkering with the edges, with endearing or provoking gestures, but a momentum that sweeps all before it. His tempo in the finale allows you to hear every note of his crystelline virtuosity and there is a heart-stopping surge and acceleration at the close. Whether this would have prompted colourful Chicago critic, Claudia Cassidy, to repeat her exclamation over Emil Gilel's performance, for her 'stewed in Russian juices and of a blowtorch projection,' is debateable but it ranks high among the seemingly endless recordings of Tchaikovsky's First Concerto.
Finally, there is Stravinsky's 'Petrushka' where once again you are left to marvel at a brilliance that is never less than characterful. Dichter's lucidity never allows the music to collapse, as it so often does, into a mere barrage of sound.
All in all, these records should be in every musician's collection. And I hope that Dichter's Philips recordings(they include both the Brahms Concertos, Beethoven's opus 101 Sonata, Liszt's complete Hungarian Rhapsodies and the Schumann Fantasie) will be released, complete rather than in a selection. You can never have enough of playing of this calibre.
Bryce Morrison