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The title, the photos, and the booklet notes aim to position 34-year-old James Rhodes as classical music's answer to Sid Vicious or Iggy Pop, an impression fueled by this pianist's past struggles with drug abuse and self-mutilation, together with his determinedly "unclassical" platform manner. But listen without looking and you'll discover a sensitive and imaginative artist with a lyrical gift and a bell-like keyboard touch. The Bach G major French Suite's quicker movements evoke a fuller-bodied manifestation of Glenn Gould's hair-trigger articulation, while the opening Allemande boasts inventive ornamentation in the repeats, and the slow-moving Sarabande oozes concentration and sustaining power. The Bach/Busoni Chaconne stands out for Rhodes' steady deliberation and an insidious cumulative arc.
Conversely Rhodes' flexible pulse throughout the Beethoven E minor sonata underscores the first movement's points of tension and the second movement's almost Schubertian melodic trajectory. Also note Rhodes' uncommonly clear articulation of the first movement's difficult, rapid rotary figurations.
The Moszkowski and Bach/Siloti encores exude old-school charm and mastery. My only quibble concerns Chopin's Fourth Ballade, where Rhodes' broad tempos and slightly discursive rubatos cause the music to ramble, in contrast to similarly subjective yet more cogently structured interpretations by Ivan Moravec and Claudio Arrau. All in all, this excellently engineered recital showcases an immensely talented pianist with something to say, and I look forward to hearing more.
Jed Distler
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Few pianists can change the sound of a concert grand without tampering with its insides, as John Cage did, or adopting an eccentric regime in the manner of Glenn Gould. James Rhodes, bookmark the name, does it without resorting to gimmickry.
His sound, from the opening of the Bach Toccata in Ferruccio Busoni’s transcription, cannot be mistaken for that of any other pianist, alive or dead. It is confrontational, brittle, intermittently seductive.
Further adjectives are superfluous and potentially misleading. The sound is what it is, like it or not. My personal reaction veered from curiosity to irritation to wonderment and all the way back again. Rhodes, whose last record was titled Razor Blades, Little Pills and Big Pianos, has a turbulent psychiatric history and no formal music education. He is 34 years old and has just been signed by the rock division of Warners, more for his attitude than for the music he plays, which is irreproachably classical. The Bach pieces here ring true and the Beethoven sonata, number 30, opus 109, is done without excessive introspection. If anything, it is a little underdone, too matter-of-fact for comfortable listening, a tad lacking in tenderness. Nevertheless, it clings to the ear long after the final note and the residue is by no means unpleasant. There is an original talent at work on this piano, and we are going to hear much more of it.
Norman Lebrecht's CD of the Week - 11 April 2010
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