al Chopin Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21. Severin Eisenberger (pf); Cincinnati Conservatory Orchestra / Alexander von Kreisler.

Opal mono (1)02 OPALCD9858 (64 minutes: ADD). Also contains short solo piano works by Brahms, D. Scarlatti, Liszt/Schubert and Schumann. Recorded at performances between 1937 and 1939. Sources unknown.

Severin Eisenberger (1879-1945) was a Leschetizky pupil who, according to Opal's notes, "embodied the last musical culture of Central Europe", a notion hardly borne out by his performances. An initial sense of romantic fullness in the central burgeoning ideas of Schumann's Aufschwung or the Andantino from the Fantasiesiiicke, Op. 1 II is countered by a growing unease elsewhere. Brahms's wah:es hardly need such lavish `gipsy' attention, and you can hear far more teasingly light and elegant performances of the Liszt/Schubert Soiree de Vienne (try Horowitz at the height of his Indian summer — DG, 11/89 — or Kissin reeling off pianistic intricacy with a nonchalant disregard for difficulty on Sony Classical, 6/93); and it is surely odd to find Schumann's "Novelette" from his Bunte lifted out of context and heard in such eccentric isolation.

Alas, things hardly improve in Chopin's Second Concerto, the principal work on this disc. Once again Eisenberger's manner is hectoring and imprecise, and terms such as dolcissimo or ppp are usually discarded in favour of more flamboyant alternatives. At 053" in the finale he enters a beat early, throwing his already nonplussed partners into further disarray. And, to add insult to injury, the orchestral part has been 'improved' in a manner more attuned to MiklOs ROzsa than to Chopin. BM