One of the great and perhaps unexpected benefits of the CD era has been the publication of rare historic recordings to an astonishing degree. Recordings that were never released during the LP era have been remastered and issued on CD; it is indeed a collector’s dream to be living at this time when the great performances of the past are more accessible than ever before. Decca’s Eloquence label has been doing a marvellous job with releasing some fine rarities, most recently presenting the complete Decca recordings of an artist who had escaped my attention: the Russian pianist Nikolai Orloff.
In my 30 years of collecting I never came across an LP of this pianist’s recordings (if I saw one, it certainly didn’t capture my attention) and biographical information online is limited to say the least. Fortunately my friend and colleague, the eminent pianophile Jonathan Summers of the British Library Sound Collections, was commissioned to produce the notes for this wonderful new CD. Some of the biographical highlights of this artist:
Born in 1892, Orloff came from a famous Russian family and graduated with the Gold Medal from the Moscow Conservatory in 1910 after studying piano with the legendary Konstantin Igumnov and composition with Taneyev. His first public appearance was the premiere of Glazunov’s First Piano Concerto in 1912, and after some years teaching in Russia he would tour abroad in 1921 with Glazunov himself before settling in Paris the following year. His London debut took place in 1924 while he would first appear in the US on a tour held in late 1926. Some high-profile performances in New York include a ‘Musical Morning’ with Rosa Ponselle and Giovanni Martinelli and a Carnegie Hall recital. He would move to Scotland in 1948, where he died a the age of 72 in 1964.
Orloff did not produce recordings at the height of his career, his first discs being made for Decca starting September 1945 when he was 53 years old. This wonderful reading of Chopin’s First Impromptu – leisurely, elegant, and fluid – was recorded at his first session:
The only large-scale work on the new Eloquence CD of Orloff’s Decca recordings is his 1945 account of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1, with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Anatole Fistoulari. While the microphone placement results in the piano sounding set rather ‘back’, the playing is mesmerizing for a similar reason: Orloff doesn’t push his way to the front as do most pianists, eschewing the more overtly showy aspects of the work with a very musical approach, characterized by lyrical phrasing, more regulated dynamics (there is never a hint of banging), and beautiful tone – an approach not unlike the 1925 acoustical recording by his compatriot Vassily Sapellnikoff, who had played the work with the composer himself. The last movement of the concerto is a fine example of how Orloff’s more sensitive approach can reveal hidden dimensions in frequently-played showpieces:
This is not to suggest that the playing is lacking in excitement: Orloff’s traversal of Chopin’s Etude in C-Sharp Minor Op.10 No.4 featured here, for example, features thrilling fingerwork at a terrific tempo and is played with great gusto. However, moments of abandon are beautifully tempered with deliberate musical choices, such as his ending this vivacious etude with chords that are musically voiced and not played fortissimo:
This wonderful CD clocks in at just over an hour and is an important addition to the discography of great pianists of the world, bringing to light the art of a forgotten artist of the past whose modest and musical approach – and more limited commercial output – has unjustly led to his being less remembered than many of his contemporaries. Between the Tchaikovsky First Concerto and a group of Chopin solos on this disc, we get to hear some very refined and elegant pianism from a long neglected artist.
Bravo to the team at Eloquence for this fine production. You can sample the contents at this YouTube playlist provided by the label and find information on where to order the disc here.