SUPERB
This is the best recording I've ever heard of the Rachmaninoff - filled with passion, lyricism and rhythmic drive. Rach. himself was said to have mistaken this recording for his own.

CRAZY!
Best Rachmaninov 2nd & Paganini Rhapsody I've ever heard!

What this guy does with these pieces is CRAZY!!! Not only that but the orchestra goes off the top! And can't ask for better mono engineering!

I've been looking for a few years for a version that does justice to these huge amazing works...I finally got them!

Kapell is a meteorite!

...you better be sittin down!

Technically Brilliant-- but not Emotionally
Sorry. That should be three stars above.
This is a great work --so powerful you can almost see Pagnini's battle between good and evil brought out by Rachmaninoff. (It was rumored he had a pact with the Devil to play so well).
It doesn't come across for me in this recording.
There is technical brilliance here. Amazing finger work of incredible speed. But I find it empty of both the darker, threatening visage from the orchestra and the sweet moment of love that tries to 'save' the music's decent into darkness.
Yet our other reviewer from South America finds it outstanding. I agree with the first reviewer-- not enough.
That love song on Track 19 should lift the listener to a sigh of aching joy and relief from dancing madness. It is among the greatest ever written. It deserves emotion as well as brilliance.

the rapsody is a spoiler
the rapsody is a spoiler. This product is featured on many recordings and does not have that everlasting value which the products of Rach do have at least for me. Sound quality is average.

William Kapell : Unforgetable!
Rachmaninoff's Second Concert is the most played work of this composer . You can make an impressive account of one hundred performances at least in the last forty years .

But to be true only seven versions deserve to be in the list of the most remarkable, and this is precisely one of them. Kapell made of this performance a farewell concert far beyond of the overindulgence and heartfelt phrase. Kapell never sounded romantic. He was a mature artist and avoided above all the cliches. He won will all the honors a honest and convincing performance without tears, but filled with noblesse.

The real winner performance of this fundamental album is Rachmaninoff's Variations. There has not ever born any pianist previous or later who had got so flammigerous, incandescent, furtive and fierce reading of this work as Kapell did it. Precision, conviction, phrasing, technique, histamina, poetry and rapture are some of the most remarkable adjectives I can find for this recording. Reiner directed admirably too to be honest. And this superb version is a real landmark and believe or not the time not only has elevated this status version, but besides has reached in the present times colossal dimensions. And I would really recommend another three additional performances: another version recently released live by Kapell and under Bernstein's batoon and two recordings by Richter: one from 1955 and the ultra known of 1958 with Stanislav Wisloscki.

Shostakovich;s Preludes are OK, but there's a name in these works: Tatiana Nikolayeva.