PNINA SALZMAN

The Israeli pianist. Pnina Salzman is one pianist I discovered completely by accident, and along with Joyce Hatto, died only last year.

I was looking for a recording of the Saint Saens 5th (Egyptian) piano concerto, and although there are now a few recordings of the work, there are never as many as there are of, say the Rachmaninoff or Tchaikovsky concertos. There are marvellous performances of the Egyptian by Tagliaferro, Hough, Richter, Tiegermann and one or two others, but having this listed on Volume 3 of the Salzman output made me get it.

What a performance she gives, there are no weaknesses in her interpretation either musically or technically, and she really does get to grips with the massive demands that the concerto makes on the artist.

Pretty much all the performances she has committed to CD are live and this gives them a greater sense of adventure and spirit. Among them are perhaps my favourite ever performance of the 3rd concerto of Bartok (despite a slightly poorly tuned piano she really makes this music come to life in a way that has you singing it in the car for days after!) The rarely performed D'indy 'Variations on a Mountain Song' are a real gem, as are her performances of the Khachaturian Concerto, the Franck Symphonic Variations and one or two other gems.

Like many of the other pianists I have written about, I am just at a loss as to how Pnina Salzman is not far better known. She has worked with the great conductors, given legendary performances, and fortunately some of these are now committed to disc.

Salzman has been an important piano teacher and was, I believe, head of the piano faculty at one of the important Israeli universities.

An incredible artist and well worth searching out.