Sometime last week, I turned on the radio and caught the final one and a half movements of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring soloist Krystian Zimerman and conductor Seiji Ozawa (Deutsche Grammophon 000185802). This recording is electric. Zimerman does things on the piano the likes of which I have not heard anywhere else, and both soloist and conductor display deep understanding and manage to teach even those who are already very familiar with it something new about the music. I actually own this recording on CD but hadn't heard it in years. While there are problems (such as a few places where the piano overpowers the orchestra) that keep it from being one of the definitive recordings of the work, this is a recording not to be missed by admirers.
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Generally, it is best to listen first to one of the acknowledged "definitive recordings" of a work of classical music. This helps one grasp more quickly the music's basic meaning. Once one has reached a sufficient level of understanding, one then enjoys the luxury of being able to listen profitably to recordings that are not as consistently great from beginning to end. This is because, secure in our understanding, we may choose to overlook the parts that we feel are wrong and focus more on the parts that we feel are right, including parts that reveal something deep about the music that we hadn't noticed before.
We should not wonder, then, why artists continue to find the motivation to record classic works. There is always the opportunity to enrich listeners with some new insight.
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