Yes Jim, we both love Arrau.
For me it goes beyond his music, I love his attitude toward life, his curiosity, his priorities, his mild manner.
I appreciate his love, loyalty and honor for his wife and family.
When he walks onto a stage he hears the applause and he smiles as if to say "OK, I will take you there".
No showboating, no elaborate gesturing, just the real deal.
I was considering replacing my upright with a grand, then I saw pictures of Arrau practicing on an upright, and I realized that I already have more than I need (an old cheap Yamaha U1 that once had termites, and has a wonderful sound and touch, well tuned and regulated).
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Now listening
Martha Argerich and Sergei Babayan, Prokofiev For Two
Romeo and Juliet, Eugene Onegin, Hamlet, Queen of Spades, War and Peace
Superb!
Includes great picture of them at their Fabrini/Steinway pianos.
on DG
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and now it's
Martha Argerich and Lilya Zilberstein playing Rachmaninov
Suite No. 1 Op. 5 for two Pianos
Incredible.
This is CD 4 (of 6 CDs) from Martha Argerich Edition Solos and Duos
on EMI
Everyone wants to play with Martha!
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Another Argerich duo gem
Rachmaninov Suites No1 and 2
with Lilya Zilberstein
Martha Argerich Edition, Solos and Duos, on EMI 0 94944 2
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I take it all back
Some time ago I wrote that I preferred Bach on piano rather than harpsichord. But now listening to Gustav Leonhardt play the English Suites, my opinion has changed.
I think Arrau said he had quit playing Bach on piano because it was better on harpsichord. But I don't think he ever recorded it.
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Yes, Brendel made admirable decision to quit playing piano in public, but succeeded as conductor.
Richter suffered depression from his infirmity. He suffered changes in his
hearing that altered his perception of pitch. Died at 82. |
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Richter I think it was Jim who mentioned that most Richter recordings are technically below par. So I wanted to steer you to a set by Richter that is exceptional. It was published by Phillips, and is titled "The Essential Richter", consisting of 5 cds, and yes there is an audience, but their noise is downmixed to inoffensive. It is available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Richter-Sviatoslav/dp/B0000262ZN |
To chase away homeless people, 7-Eleven stores in L.A. use classical music
that's headline from LA Timesthey install speakers at entrance to the store, and play classical music to deter homeless people from hanging out
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Rachmaninov, Ireland, Yuja Wang, Hofman Interesting article praising Rachmaninov, describing his snail paced practice. Also praises Yuja Wang's performance. "Rachmaninov wrote the Third Concerto for Hofmann and dedicated
it to him. The composer played the work for Hofmann in 1911, and the
response was negative: “A short melody which is constantly interrupted
with difficult passages; more a fantaisie than a concerto. Not enough
form.” Hofmann, who had other works by Rachmaninov in his repertoire, never played the Third Concerto." https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/the-rachmaninov-method-practise-like-a-snail-play-like-a-ga... |
agree with you Jim
and i will take it a step further and say i resent all the distractions that are so common, including the histrionics of the performers themselves
Sv. Richter once said he preferred simple lighting, eg, a couple candles,because he did not want the audience distracted from the music by his personality
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Now listening to Francsco Piemontesi, Liszt 2 Legends, also Annees.
Very nice
Has anyone heard him?
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Yes Jim, I also like Piemontesi's Debussy Preludes.
Also listening to Imogen Cooper's Iberia and Francia cd, just out this year.
I am stunned by the beauty of Mompou's
Cançons i danses (Excerpts) : No. 1 in F-Sharp Major
Thanks for the tip on Lisieki, will give him a listen.
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Speaking of Richter and Ravel , , ,
Now listening to Richter/Kagan/Gutman
Franck and Ravel Trios
It does not get any better
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thanks for the tip re Hagen Quartet, will listen
meanwhile now playing lots of Rudolf Serkin
there is a 75 cd compilation, and it includes RS playing
Beethoven Sonatas for Cello and Piano with Casals
never better, they both are as good as it gets, and they leave room for each other too
Other recordings include Serkin with Rostropovich and of course with the Busch's
+ a host of sonatas and concertos
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“I was only six when I first heard Rachmaninoff perform, and I attended his
concerts regularly for the next twenty-two years until his death in 1943. I
heard him play not only his most of his own compositions, but the entire
standard repertoire that he chose to perform in public. I also had the good
fortune to hear him in the role of conductor. Sergei Rachmaninoff has been
the most important musical influence of my life. His sheer presence commanded
a respect which was formidable. The simplicity of his approach to
the keyboard was a model of perfection which I have strived to emulate.”
Earl Wild
Now listening to Earl Wild's Legendary Rachmaninoff Song Transcriptions
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Richter, the EnigmaRichter at age 80 reminiscing about his life, interspersed with period footage.
He never played scales.
He was really powerful/dynamic at the keyboard!
Too much to describe, highly recommended.
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In RICHTER: THE ENIGMA, Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997), one of the greatest pianists of all time, breaks his life-long silence and allows himself to be interviewed for this autobiographical film. He evokes his wild childhood, his encounters with the great names in the music world, his performance debuts, and his activities as a concert artist in the troubled Soviet Union. Acerbic and unpredictable, Richter reveals himself here with disarming candour and humour. The programme includes previously unseen archival footage, a wealth of performance excerpts, and works by the following composers: Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Liszt, Mozart, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Ravel, Saint-Saens, Schubert, Shostakovich, and more.
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I never heard Rachmaninov, I was 3 years old when he died.
I had a chance to hear Richter, I was in college just a hundred miles from Carnegie Hall. My aunt was a perennial student at Julliard, she said tickets were impossible.
The only first rank pianist I have ever heard was Ashkenazy.
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My favorite Ashkenazy recording is the Shostakovich Preludes.
Somehow his recordings are all excellent technically, which cannot be said for many other great pianists. I don't know how that happened. |
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Another favorite Ashkenazy recording:
Rachmaninov Moments Musicaux,
which includes Morceaux de Fantasie
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Have you heard?
Chopin evocations
DG No. 4797518 2017
Daniil Trifonov ..................... piano
Sergei Babayan ................... piano 2 *
Mahler Chamber Orchestra .................
Mikhail Pletnev ................. conductor
Tracklist
01-03. Chopin - Concerto For Piano And Orchestra No. 2 In F Minor, Op. 21
04-11. Chopin - Variations On "La Ci Darem La Mano", Op. 2
12. Schumann - Carnaval, Op.9: 12. Chopin
13. Grieg - Moods, Op.73-5: Étude "Hommage À Chopin"
14. Barber - Nocturne, Op. 33
15. Tchaikovsky - 18 Pieces, Op. 72: 15. Un Poco Di Chopin
16. Chopin - Rondo In C Major, Op.73 *
17-19. Chopin - Concerto For Piano And Orchestra No. 1 In E Minor, Op. 11
20-32. Mompou - Variations On A Theme By Chopin
33. Chopin - Fantaisie-impromptu In C Sharp Minor, Op. 66
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newbee
me too
Watched part 2 of "The Enigma" last night. Awesome.
Interviews with Gould, among many others.
And lots of footage of R playing.
R describes why he prefers Haydn to Mozart.
Never realized how much Richter looked like Kesey at age 40-50!
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Thanks Newbee, will try to find that recording. Just read a wonderful piece about Bach!
"I’ve talked to people who feel they know Bach very well, but they aren’t
aware of the time he was imprisoned for a month. They never learned
about Bach pulling a knife on a fellow musician during a street fight.
They never heard about his drinking exploits—on one two-week trip he
billed the church eighteen gorchsen for beer, enough to purchase eight gallons
of it at retail prices—or that his contract with the Duke of Saxony
included a provision for tax-free beer from the castle brewery; or that
he was accused of consorting with an unknown, unmarried woman in the
organ loft; or had a reputation for ignoring assigned duties without
explanation or apology. They don’t know about Bach’s sex life: at best a
matter of speculation, but what should we conclude from his twenty
known children, more than any significant composer in history (a
procreative career that has led some to joke with a knowing wink that
“Bach’s organ had no stops”), or his second marriage to twenty-year-old
singer Anna Magdalena Wilcke, when he was in his late thirties? They
don’t know about the constant disciplinary problems Bach caused, or his
insolence to students, or the many other ways he found to flout
authority. This is the Bach branded as “incorrigible” by the councilors
in Leipzig, who grimly documented offense after offense committed by
their stubborn and irascible employee." more here: https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/js-bach-rebel |
love her big gold boots!
she's got her hand inside the piano on the piece by
Jennifer Higdon: Notes of Gratitude
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Newbee, thanks
My favorite recording of Schumann romances is still
Tatiana Nikolayeva
It is part of "Russian Piano School" series
BMG Classics 74321 332132
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2 new books about Debussy reviewed here: quote
There is no record of Debussy attending school, and his father had him
down for a life as a sailor. His musical talent was discovered by
chance. In 1871, his father was arrested for participating in the Paris
Commune, and in jail became friends with a musician, Charles de Sivry,
whose mother – Antoinette-Flore Mauté – was a talented pianist and
teacher who claimed to have been a pupil of Chopin’s (as it happened,
she was also Verlaine’s mother-in-law). It was Madame Mauté who
recognised Debussy’s exceptional musicality. She gave him piano lessons
and a year later, aged ten, he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire,
the youngest candidate then to be offered a place.
, , ,
He sought to compose music that was expressive and beautiful, and he
grounded it in the quality of his ear and in his musical intuition. It
wasn’t only that he was restlessly bored with formulaic solutions to
composition, but that he felt music had become too noisy and too
rhetorical, and that in its high claims to various kinds of content –
religious, cod-religious (Wagner), philosophical, psychological,
sociopolitical, whatever – music had forgotten its origin in sound. The
racket and bombast of much late 19th-century orchestral and operatic
music distressed him. It was as if he couldn’t hear himself think, or
rather, as if he couldn’t hear himself hear. Debussy’s music is capable
of wonderful gaiety, exuberance, jubilation, ecstasy; yet, given his
preoccupation with sound, it was inevitable that an unusual proportion
of his work – compared to that of other composers of his time – would
sit at the quieter end of the dynamic spectrum, as Stephen Walsh points
out, and it’s one of the reasons it is difficult to perform well: the
modern concert piano is incapable of the differentiations of pianissimo
that Debussy asks for, and the subtle discriminations of his orchestral
works, such as La Mer and Jeux, pose big challenges
for even the best players (and for conductors: Boulez, the finest
interpreter of Debussy’s orchestral works, described titrating the tone
of Jeux as a matter of hair’s breadth musical judgment).
https://outline.com/EL58yU
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Vera Dulova, harp
Russian Performing School (1995)
Mozart, Donizetti, Saint-Saens, Ravel, Pascal
If you like pretty music, find this.
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favorite musicians playing Rachmaninov: Rachmaninov himself, Richter,
Gilels, Gavrilov,
Sofronitsky,
Berman,
Ashkenazy,
Sokolov,
Berezovsky,
Argerich, Bolet,
Biret, Trifonov, Rubinstein,
Diev, Angelich, Osborne, Kissin, Weissenberg, Grimaud, Lugansky, Graffman, Wild, Pizarro, Volodos, Ogdon, Cherkassky, Shelley, Van Cliburn. Btw, there are some excellent documentaries:
Rachmaninoff Documentary The Harvest Of Sorrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWG9euFgJ0U
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff Documentary Part 01 of 07
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIee4loMEWo
BBC The Joy of Rachmaninoff Documentary 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHiUBBy2eMk |
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Watching a film "Andrei Gavrilov Plays Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich" featuring Gideon Kremer on violin in some of the performances. There is a lot of talk/explanation about the music and the composers.
The role of host is played by Michael Berkeley.
Incredibly good, informative.
There is also bonus short film "Russian Vunkerkins" by Irene Langemann.
Highly recommended.
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excuse methe title of the movie is "Andrei Gavrilov Plays Prokofiev, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich" (NOT Tchaikovsky, but he plays some Tchaikovsky too, and discusses the man as well as his music.)
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I have "The Chopin Collection" by Rubinstein, but it is 11 cds. Wondering what I am missing? It is on RCA label.There are so many great recordings of Chopin by so many great pianists that I cannot begin to name a favorite.
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Jim
Re Volodos
Listening again to Volodos in Vienna
The Scriabin Prelude Op 37 is exquisite!
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Thanks RV and Jim,
I have the Schubert cds, and will listen to the Cello Sonata.
Also love Volodos recording of Rachmaninov Etude-Tableauon the Carnegie Hall cd.
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eiOO1
I have a collection of Richter playing Schubert Sonatas, part of BBC Legendsseries. And another Richter Schubert collection that includes two sonatas and the Huttenbrenner Variations. I think these must be different recordings than the ones you mention. They are excellent. I really love Richter!
When I watched the Volodos Rachmaninoff Cello Sonata on Youtube I was struck with a similarity between Volodos and Richter, i.e., their facial expressions and appearance at the keyboard. They are both playing for themselves, not putting on a show for an audience. I appreciate that.
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Schubert et alI love Schubert, and the recordings you mention, i.e., Volodos, Richter, Cooper, also Arrau and Brendel. To my ear, Cooper sounds very like Brendel, with whom she studied, and I mean this as a compliment.
Missing from this discussion is Kempff, who popularized Schubert. His recordings are limited by the technology of his time, but they stand up well for me; when I listen, I think of nothing else.
Did you know that Rachmaninov never heard of Schubert's sonatas? That is the darkness that Kempf illuminated.
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