Maurizio Pollini, Christian Thielemann - Brahms: Piano Concerto No.1 (2011)

Maurizio Pollini's 2011 concert recording of Johannes Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor is an important document because it not only captures his return to playing with the esteemed Staatskapelle Dresden (his first performance with the group since 1986), and his first collaboration with conductor Christian Thielemann, but it presents the very work the pianist played at his Staatskapelle debut in 1976. All of this background is helpful to know, to understand the significance Deutsche Grammophon attaches to this release, even at the risk of offering a CD that runs just over 45 minutes, without any filler for added value. Yet Pollini's admirers will regard this as a magnificent rendition as well as a personal triumph, and others will concede that it is a compelling performance by any artistic standard. Pollini's mastery of this concerto is never in question, and Thielemann's connection to the soloist ensures that the orchestra and piano are together throughout. However, one serious drawback to this recording is the muddy audio quality, which presents an over-homogenized orchestral mass, heavily dominated by the strings. Additionally, the piano's microphone is too far away to give it separation or presence, though Pollini's humming in his solos is impossible to miss. To get any sense of what the musicians really sounded like, the volume has to be turned up quite high, which suggests that using headphones might be the best way to hear this CD.