Santiago Rodriguez

[George]

This morning I was listening to a number of different recordings of Rachmaninov's Op. 32, one of them by the by Cuban Pianist Santiago Rodriguez. I had heard these performances before but for some reason, I didn't notice how just how incredibly he plays these works. The slow ones are played tenderly, with a passionate style that was incredibly moving. The faster ones are intense, immediate, urgent. I would have to compare to Ashkenazy, but I think this is the best Op. 32 I have ever heard. I also have the other Elan CDs that Rodriguez has recorded. They contain the remaining Preludes, the two sonatas, etc. The sound is excellent, all three CDs were digitally recorded.  

I strongly recommend that all lovers of Rachmaninov's music check out Santiago Rodriguez.  

I also have his Rachmaninov PC 3 on the same label, but haven't listened to it yet.
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From a MusicWeb review (of another pianist) by Bernard Jacobson:

"These days, pianists that can play Rachmaninoff's music with all the consuming passion, lyrical melancholy, and digital brilliance it demands are two a penny. But a rarity still is the artist capable, in addition to those qualities, of bringing to it (or perhaps I should say drawing from it) an equal measure of the elegance and nobility no less fundamental to the composer's complex nature. In my own experience, one pianist of that caliber has been the Cuban-born Santiago Rodriguez, who indeed it was that effected, through his playing, my rather shamefully late discovery that Rachmaninoff was a genius far more substantial than I had previously thought."

[Slezak]

  While still on the air(I recently retired from broadcasting, after 42 years), I played this artist's recordings from time-to-time, and found him to be a really fine pianist. He doesn't seem to have many recordings available, but what I have heard is worth obtaining.  SS

[George]

I just compared Santiago's Rachmaninov preludes (spread over three Elan CDs) to my all time favorite set by Ashkenazy on Decca/London. It was very close, but I still prefer Ashkenazy slightly overall. However, in a few preludes that I preferred Rodriguez, it was by a great margin. Speaking generally, Rodriguez does incredibly well with the extroverted preludes, while Ashkenazy does great with the more poetic ones.

I preferred Asheknazy in 13 of the 24:
Op. 3, No. 2; Op 23, Nos 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 and Op. 32, Nos 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11 and 13

Rodriguez in 11 of the 24:
Op. 23, No. 2, 5, 8, 9, 10; Op. 32, Nos 1, 2, 6, 8, 9 and 12