Rachmaninoff ① Piano Concerto No. 2 ② Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Cécile Licad (piano) Conductor: Claudio Abbado Chicago Symphony Orchestra Recorded: February 1983 This is Cécile Licad's debut album. I think it's amazing to collaborate with Abbado and the Chicago Symphony on a debut album. Licad's performance is not particularly large in scale, but each individual note is very beautiful and vivid, a performance imbued with lyricism. Abbado and the Chicago Symphony have beautiful harmonies and a moderate sense of weight, and the melancholic melodies are full of highlights. Those who seek a Russian-style performance may find it a bit lacking, but I think it's a first-class performance in terms of pure musicality. The Paganini Rhapsody is as good as or even better than the Piano Concerto No. 2. Abbado re-recorded the Piano Concerto No. 2 later with Krystian Zimerman on piano, but personally, I think the Licad version is superior. The Rachmaninoff you can hear on this CD is colored by the personalities of "Abbado" and the "Chicago Symphony." It's healthy and tightly knit, and even if you ignore the literary elements or the ethnic nuances that might be glimpsed behind the music, the charm of these pieces does not diminish at all, proving it. There is also a disc of "Rubinstein + Ormandy" which is highly regarded for this kind of performance, but I think this Licad version takes that approach a step further and blossoms. I don't like rich, thick performances with a strong Russian flavor, and while the sound is somewhat slender, it is pure and not lacking in virtuosity, and Abbado's support is, as expected, perfect. The Chicago Symphony also has plenty of room to spare with 70-80% of its power. Licad went to the United States to study and then built her career by studying with Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute of Music, but after this, she didn't seem to do so well. According to one theory, she was favored by the former First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, but it's unlikely that this cast a shadow on her career. But this album is not bad. Especially the Paganini Rhapsody is still one of the best. [Japanese Edition] No obi, no scratches on the disc surface. Case has some scratches.