I am still in two minds about these performances and might yet revise this, my initial response, but I find myself torn between two reactions: first, that this is first class music-making by sensitive musicians who have decided that the only way to approach music which has become a cliché is to re-think matters entirely, and go for a more cerebral, serious interpretation; secondly, that this very decision robs the music of a certain vulgar vitality essential to its nature. Of course, the second alternative is the direct result of the first decision. The Santa Fe listener has neatly anatomised the dilemma in his perceptive lead review on Amazon.com; if I want to hear Horowitz tear a passion to tatters in the Third I know where to go, but there must surely be room for this more considered version.
This disc certainly didn't take me by storm the way Petrenko's other recent Rachmaninov medley on Avie did. My appreciation of those performances and the fact that they almost instantly became my first choice for "The Isle of the Dead" and the "Symphonic Dances" led me to have high hopes of these concertos; that expectation has not been fulfilled but I do not want to dismiss these versions out of hand, as they might well repay careful re-listening. Trpceski is fleet and fluent in the passagework but, compared with the brilliant, breathless attack of, say, Byron Janis and Dorati on the old Mercury recording, the tempi set by him and Petrenko seem a bit tame and careful - although they create a kind of contemplative, melancholy quite other than the more traditional, barnstorming showmanship we have become used to.
Try to listen before you buy; meanwhile for me I think the jury is still out on this one.