The Penguin Guide
Piano concerto in F: Rhapsody in blue: Second Rhapsody for piano and orchestra: Variations on ‘I got rhythm’
(M)***Classic fm Dig, 76505 57012-2 [id]. Michael Boriskin, Eos O, Jonathan Sheffer.
This is the most seductive pairing of the Rhapsody in blue and the Concerto in F to have come our way for a long time. The performances have a superb sense of style, and are for today what Bernstein’s famous versions were for the 1950’s and ‘60’s. Michael Boriskin is a native New Yorker, and he and Jonathan Sheffer immediately establish a partnership which brings an idiomatic and freshly individual approach to these two concertante masterpieces, which uniquely span the jazz world and the ethos of the concert hall. The keenly sophisticated and inventive ‘I got rhythm’ variations are no less glittering and are wonderfully infectious. The orchestral details throughout is a joy (especially illuminating in the less inspired Second Rhapsody), while in the concerto the big climaxes open out to engulf the listener expansively and ardently. Boriskin’s brilliant pianism is wittily skittish in the most infectious way, both in the Rhapsody and in the delectably played central section of the concerto’s slow movement. The finale brings dazzling yet totally unforced bravura from ever nimble fingers, matched by sparkling orchestral rhythms. The recording is first rate. This is not to be missed.