Bolero

PROKOFIEV. Piano Concerto No.1 in D flat major. Piano Sonata No. 5 in C major. RAVEL. Piano Concerto in D major for left hand. Miroirs – Alborada del gracioso. Jorge Federico Osorio (pf): Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Enrique Batiz. SV digital. Prokofiev-selected comparison: Gavrilow, LSO Rattle, Ravel-Selected comparisons: Collard, FNO Maazei

Despite, or perhaps because of, their completely different characters, Ravel’s two piano concertos make an obvious coupling and there is no shortage of recordings to prove the point. Both those listed above as a comparisons have won high praise in these columns; the version by Pascal Rogé on Decca (Coupled with tree of Ravel’s shorter orchestral trahscriptions: Une barque sur l’oceàn Menuet antique and the “Fanfare” for the ballet Loeventail de Jeanne) being marginally more restrained and reflective, though not lacking in bravura where it is required, than that by Jean Phillippe Collard on HMV in more obviously virtuosic readings.

The new version of the Left-hand Concerto by the Mexican-born Jorge Federico Osorio strikes me as being no less good than either Rogè’s or Collard’s, combining absolute technical mastery with an instinctive feeling for the somber, ruminative, impassioned and sardonic quality of the music; and the RPO under Enrique Bátiz, aided by an astonishingly vivid recording for ASV, fully realizes the subtlety and resourcefulness of Ravel’s orchestration, with its exploitation of such instruments as the contra-basson and the cor anglais. Osorio’s principal coupling is the brilliant, iconoclastic Concerto in D flat with which the young Prokofiev made his concerto debut in 1912; not as it happens, as inappropriate a pairing as it might seem, since both it and the Ravel Left-hand Concerto are ostensibly continuous works that fall into three clearly defined sections or movements.

A not inconsiderable bonus is favour of the new issue is the fact that it also includes two substantial addenda: Prokofiev’s three-movement Sonata No5 (one of his best), written in Paris in 1924 and revised and “simplified” in 1952-3, and another of Ravel’s Miroirs: The flamboyant “Alborada del gracioso”, in its original keyboard guise.

Gramophone, may 1986

PROKOFIEV: Piano Concerto No.1 0 Sonata LP; No.B/RAVEL: Piano Concerto for Left Hand; Alborada del Gracioso; Osorio/RPO/Batiz, ASV DCA 555 digital (NCD. MC: ZC OCA 555)

Jorge Federico Osorio is plainly an artist of quality, his technique 'complete', his ringers strong and agile, fully equal to the muscular demands of Prokofiev's tear away First Concerto, sensitive to the contrasting restraint of the bitter-sweet 5th Sonata, and the gamut of mood and colour possibilities in the Ravel. A pity, therefore, that the piano sound should fall so short. It's none too special at any point on the disc, but positively emaciated in the Prokofiev Sonata - shallow, and quite lifeless.

Things improve greatly for the Ravel 'left hand' which technically and artistically speaking is the best thing on the record by a long chalk. I'll go further. It's really rather fine - until you start making comparisons with the now-celebrated Gavrilov/Rattle disc (EMI - similarly coupled but without the 5th Sonata and Alborada, the ASV disc is certainly well filled) and realise just where and how you've been missing out. (C/B:2)

Edward Seekerson, Hi Fi News March, 1986