Ashkenazy's 20-year-old Swedish protégé proves worthy of the maestro's patronage. On the evidence of this disc he is a well-balanced musician with his heart and fingers in the right places, and his chosen programme is a stimulating one.
“Jablonski, whose credentials include having been voted best jazz drummer in Sweden at the age of seven (!), revels in its high jinks, and Ashkenazy and the orchestra just manage to hang on to his coat-tails... an exciting end to an admirably played and recorded disc.” --Gramophone Magazine
Jablonski's Rachtnaninov perhaps commands more respect than excitement, but it won my respect before I was aware of his youth. Generally lucid and level-headed, his limitations show up at extremes of the character range. In particular, he does not yet have the knack of retaining communicative intensity in quiet lyrical playing, and a number of variations, such as the first Dies irae from 322", are inclined to sit back on their haunches. Some of his loudest chords are accompanied by foot-stamping, and in the famous Eighteenth Variation Jablonski's singing tone, pleasant though it is, lacks a degree of richness—the orchestra's entry at 15'55" sounds as though taken from a different, more emotionally committed take. That said, he is a very musicianly player, and the RPO's attentive contribution and Decca's superb recording help to make this one of the more satisfying accounts on record.
The Shostakovich concerto is a good choice, not just as a near contemporary of the Paganini Rhapsody, but as a bridge to the zany world of Lutoslawski. It receives a fluent, well-judged and idiomatic performance with every note in place and some lovely trumpet playing from Raymond Simmons. This is a valuable complement to the manically explosive Kissin on RCA; the even younger Russian's brashness did nothing for MEO but it strikes me as a perfectly valid response to the 'low-art' origins of so many of Shostakovich's ideas.
Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations are a 1978 orchestration of the familiar 1941 two-piano work. I had not heard this version before and was instantly captivated. Jablonski, whose credentials include having been voted best jazz drummer in Sweden at the age of seven (!), revels in its high jinks, and Ashkenazy and the orchestra just manage to hang on to his coat-tails—an exciting end to an admirably played and recorded disc. -- Gramophone [12/1992]
The Shostakovich concerto is a good choice, not just as a near contemporary of the Paganini Rhapsody, but as a bridge to the zany world of Lutoslawski. It receives a fluent, well-judged and idiomatic performance with every note in place and some lovely trumpet playing from Raymond Simmons. This is a valuable complement to the manically explosive Kissin on RCA; the even younger Russian's brashness did nothing for MEO but it strikes me as a perfectly valid response to the 'low-art' origins of so many of Shostakovich's ideas.
Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations are a 1978 orchestration of the familiar 1941 two-piano work. I had not heard this version before and was instantly captivated. Jablonski, whose credentials include having been voted best jazz drummer in Sweden at the age of seven (!), revels in its high jinks, and Ashkenazy and the orchestra just manage to hang on to his coat-tails—an exciting end to an admirably played and recorded disc. -- Gramophone [12/1992]
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