| Ravel Piano Works. Mikhail Rudy (pf). |
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| EMI (Full price) (CD) CDC7 49275-2 (68 minutes: DDD). |
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| Pavane pour une infante defunte. La valse. Miroirs. Gaspard de la nuit. |
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| Ravel Piano Works. Paul Crossley (pf). |
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| CRD (Full price) (CD) CRD3383/4 (two discs, oas: 74 and 69 minutes: DDD). From CRDD1083/5 (4/84). |
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"A sincere, unaffected musician who l look forward to hearing again." That's how I described Mikhail Rudy on the strength of his Brahms recital just over a year ago ( CDC7 47556-2, 3/87), and this new Ravel disc confirms my belief in him as an artist of true sensitivity and finesse. Not for nothing did he win the Marguerite Long contest in 1975, at 22 years of age, and thereafter leave his native Russia (where he studied with Jakob Flier) to settle in France.
It was good that Paul Crossley's much praised Ravel, now excellently transferred to CD, should have arrived at the same time, permitting close comparison of all on Rudy's disc but La valse, which Crossley omits. Crossley's reproduction is more crystalline, bringing up his often more arresting colour and dynamic contrasts as if in the clear light of day. Rudy's sound-world is more moonlit and shadowy, more impressionistic, perhaps you might even say more Debussy-like. Never from him are you aware that the piano is an instrument with hammers.
It was interesting to discover that Rudy's tempos, without exception, are faster than Crossley's. This is no mere personal indulgence to show off a very fluent technique. On the rare occasions that Ravel does in fact resort to metronome markings, as in four of the five Miroirs, it is Rudy who is marginally closer to what is requested, I certainly prefer his sprightlier gait in "Alborada del gracioso"—one of the very few occasions where for me Crossley disappoints. I also think Rudy's "Le gibet" from Gaspard de la nuit (phrased and shaded as subtly as his "Oiseaux tristes" and "La vallee des cloches" in Miroirs), makes Crossley's conception of tres lent sound just a little sluggish. Against that, the extra one-and-a-quarter minutes Crossley allows himself for "Scarbo" (Gaspard) enables its detail to tell more eerily. When first reviewing "Scarbo" in April 1984, Max Harrison remarked what a welcome change it made from "the heavyweight approach that one sometimes hears in the concert hall". Rudy's is even lighter, and as for his "Ondine" (Gaspard), that's truly the stuff of dreams. I also enjoyed his ethereal simplicity in the Pavane, another kind of dream vision in comparison with Crossley's fuller-bodied more elastically phrased evocation. And though perhaps not inflammable enough for La valse, Rudy certainly never shrinks from the storms of "Une barque sur l'ocean" (Miroirs).
I've no space left to remind readers of the riches of Crossley's two discs, not forgetting those rarely heard miniatures at the end. You could scarcely hope to hear clearer reproduction of his quintessentially Ravelian sound-world than we get on this so very welcome addition to the CD catalogue.
JOC