Rachmaninoff for Two
“A validation overwhelming and unprecedented.”
"Now we have another find: a seminal new Deutsche Grammophon recording of the two-piano version, by Sergei Babayan and Daniil Trifonov, that realizes in full the magnitude of Rachmaninoff’s musical leave-taking. Their performance is in no way a replica. (...) Authentically rendered by Babayan and Trifonov, however, are Rachmaninoff’s magisterial fluidity of tempo and pulse, the heroic range of dynamics, the convulsive ebb and flow, seething and poignant, of an epic confessional. It is a validation overwhelming and unprecedented. (...) As scored for two pianos, this passage has always seemed to me makeshift, a transcription. But Babayan and Trifonov discover their own fullness of feeling here and make the spare texture sound essential. In fact, an elemental resonance informs the entire traversal. When Babayan and Trifonov performed in New York City in March 2018, their mastery of the Romantic two-piano idiom was instantly apparent: they are a historic tandem. (...) It culminates in a blaze of glory when a liturgical refulgence silences the “Dies irae.” Rachmaninoff’s private recording omits this humbling ending. But I cannot imagine a more ecstatic leave-taking than the tidal cadences with which Babayan and Trifonov cap their interpretation." (Joseph Horowitz, The American Scholar)