One of Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s early Decca recitals, these are some of the most engaging and thrilling readings of a program of essentially concert etudes. To the Schumann, Thibaudet places the five posthumous variations as an appendix and his reading of the Brahms Paganini is one of the most scintillating of all.
JOHANNES BRAHMS
Paganini Variations – Books I & II
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Études symphoniques
Arabeske
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
‘Predictably the technical challenges of Brahms’s Paganini Variations hold few fears for him. Even Horowitz once admitted that in Liszt’s Faust Waltz he’d heard Thibaudet’s fingers do things that his own couldn’t in dexterity, clarity of articulation and general command … his fingers sing as finely as they sparkle … Sound reproduction throughout is at once natural and never too forward for comfort in your own room’ Gramophone
‘A refreshingly individual, though never quirky, display of imaginative vitality … his fingers sing as finely as they sparkle’ Gramophone