Classical Music for Aficionados

Does anyone know why the MPR classical station on Chromecast has been playing Beethoven's greatest hits for a week now, over and over again.

I checked MPRs website playlist and they apparently do not parallel like they used to.

Thanks jcazador. I have her Brahms cd on D&G and the Chopin Etudes on Teldec, both excellent. It was a good while back when I lived between Paris and Cologne, I miss those times.

Mozart/Grieg - Sonata K.545 - Richter/Leonskaya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp1XG2lT8JQ

Leonskaya interview here:
https://www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/theartsdesk-qa-pianist-elisabeth-leonskaja

lucky you to hear Elizabeth Leonskaja
she was born in Tbilisi Georgia, studied in Moscow, lives in Vienna
she is married to Oleg Kagan
" Elisabeth Leonskaja’s musical development was shaped or influenced to a decisive degree by her collaboration with Sviatoslav Richter. The master recognized her exceptional talent and fostered her development not only through teaching and musical advice, but also by inviting her to play numerous duets with him. A memorable musical event! The musical partnership and personal friendship between Sviatoslav Richter and Elisabeth Leonskaja endured until Richter’s death in the year 1997. In 1978 Elisabeth Leonskaja left the Soviet Union and made her new home in Vienna. Her sensational performance at the Salzburg Festival in 1979 marked the beginning of her steadily blossoming career as a concert pianist in the west.

In addition to her many solo engagements, chamber music remains an important part of her work. She has performed many times with string quartets, such as the Belcea, Borodin Artemis and Jerusalem quartets. She also had a longstanding musical friendship with the Alban Berg Quartet, and their piano quintet recordings are legendary.

" Numerous recordings bear testimony to the outstanding artistic achievements of this pianist and she has been awarded prizes such as the Caecilia Prize for her Brahms piano sonatas, or the Diapason d´Or for her recordings of works by Liszt. Other significant recordings include the Tchaikovsky Piano Concertos with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Kurt Masur, the Chopin Piano Concertos with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy, and the Shostakovich Piano Concertos with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Leonskaja’s most recent CD recordings appeared on the Berlin based Label eaSonus (www.easonus.com). “Paris”, with works by Ravel, Enescu and Debussy, was named the Solo Recording of the Year 2014 by the ICMA Jury. “Saudade”, an homage to Russian culture with works by Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff, was released in November 2017. A complete recording of Franz Schubert’s piano sonatas in two volumes of four CDs each has been available since April 2016 and May 2019 respectively. A double-CD with variations and sonatas by Robert Schumann followed in January 2020."

http://www.leonskaja.com/

Elizabeth Leonskaja, a pianist that Richter thought very highly of, released a Schumann recording at the beginning of 2020. I have not heard this recording but many years ago I saw Elizabeth Leonskaja give a Beethoven recital at the Theatre Champs Elyse in Paris. Her musicianship and technique are evident of the Russian aesthetic.

I attended a concert by Pogorelich at Carnegie years ago. He acted as though the stage was the last place he wanted to be, and almost totally ignored the presence of an audience.  He nonetheless played magnificently.

His wife was his longtime teacher and, I believe, much older than he.
I remember being surprised when he married her.

Pogorelich is one of thousands. Many Ukrainian pianists study in US conservatories, primarily Juilliard and then move back to Odessa or Kiev. The Russian piano tradition is now international.

@rvpiano    I take your point RV about Pogorelich and his technique when young he had a superb technique as witnessed by his Scarlatti Sonatas . They were fabulous tests for him and he left them withered and burnt-out behind him. Of course he didn't even play piano for a number of years since his wife died and of course we know what that did to him. At one point he was making jewellery and selling it in markets to survive. How the other half live, poor soul.  

I found this on Qobuz. I own the cd’s, very good.

https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/album/schuamnn-piano-works-robert-schumann/4260034863668

Schumann: Complete Solo Piano Works 13 cds brilliant classics 94008
https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-15456/
https://www.amazon.com/Schumann-Complete-Solo-Piano-Works/dp/B002VZ2MQC

Qobuz, Tidal, etc... Though convenient are supremely limiting.

The Art of Ivo Pogarelich on Tidal has most of his recordings in one place. Both Pletnev and Ivo are amazing in Etudes 

This is my favorite of remastered Schumann recordings of the golden age. Unfortunately it’s been out of print for some time but used copies may show up from time to time.

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=53135

Pogorelich dissected here:
https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2019/08/22/749395568/a-confrontation-with-music-ivo-po...

Yes, I have the same LP from then.

The recording I have of Pogorelich playing Schuman's Symphonic Etudes is from 1981, when P must have been about 21 years old. He has always had serious health issues, and on the cover he looks like a high school student.  I certainly do love his music, and also his name!

RV.   Have you tried Arrau in the Fantasy , I have never heard a more poetic Clara Theme than this the piano tone at times is Orgiastic , forgive me but it is the only way I can describe it. You sure do know that Robert loved his Clara.

Johnathan , I really do love Arrau in Schumann but the sound on some of the recordings are less than sensitive to his piano tone. The Etudes are wonderful other than the piano tone. It's a pity he was getting on a bit when digital recording technique's were just getting started because the Phillips recordings of him show a wondrous tone that a lot of his analogue recordings don't have and that is now why I am trying pianists in their prime with good technique and tone to match. Don't get me wrong though Arrau is still my all time favourite pianist , he could play anything. the most jaw dropping thing I ever heard from him was Islamey from 1928 I think, it was stupefying but the recording sucked. 

Jim
big surprise that you do not prefer Arrau!so many have recorded this piece, I listen
but could never choose

On the same disc as Pletnev’s recording of Symphonic Etudes, is a magnificent performance of the Schumann Fantasy. Best I ever heard.

Yes, I agree about the late Pogorelich recordings.
I’m just now listening to his recording of the “Etudes” and find it it quite poetic.
And, at one time, he had tremendous technique.

@rvpiano  Thanks for the two that you like RV I shall find them and have a listen although I have always found their interpretations of other things by them to be a like it or leave it for me. It's a real shame now to hear Pogorelich and his new recordings ( dire ) .

My favorite recorded versions of the Etudes are by Alexis Weissenberg and Ivo Pogorelich.
Of course Pletnev is great in whatever he does.

@ei001h  My favourite in Schumann's Etudes Symphoniques is Mikhail Pletnev although not for everyone pianistically and musically  his interpretation  goes down to my very core and he seems to hit parts of me that few others do. Heard him in recital once at The Edinburgh Festival  and I was ecstatic. 

@goofyfoot found it on Tidal, listening to it now. Thanks 

ei001h,
I’d recommend looking at the apr label, here’s a Richter recording,

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=221050

Here’s a list of recordings with Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes for Piano, some are listed as recommended;

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/albumList.jsp?name_id1=10915&name_role1=1&comp_id=2717&a...

Just listened to Schumann: Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13 by Sviatoslav Richter. Melodia release, available on Tidal. It is astounding. Is there another notable recording of this ? 

Orfeo d’ Or reissues historical recordings. My favorites are from the Salzburg Festival. The Clara Haskil remaster is in mono but it’s so amazingly beautiful. Also, many years ago their existed the Andante label and their vintage recording remasters are exquisite. It’s very apparent that performance practices have changed since the early 20th century and it can be enlightening to hear people like Wilhelm Backhaus or a young Vladimir Horowitz.

jim204

Rubinstein was also a marvellous pianist in the mazurkas.....

But unknown to many the great Yakov Flier, the russian professor of many great late pianits, gives to us one of the best version of the mazurkas but totally different than Barbosa....The amazing fluidity and interprenetrating rythms of Barbosa with a perfect easiness and poetic delicate fluency is replaced by a more romantic and forceful expressiveness and mostly an amazing recreation of the dance itself (a waltz with a hicup said someone but i forgot whom) by Yakov Flier.... One of the very great russian pianists... Rubinstein is romantic like Flier and easily fluent like Barbosa but less surprizing than Flier in the dance figure recreation itself....And i like the more detached interpretation of Barbosa more than the interpretation from  many other very good pianists....

Then Barbosa and Flier are my 2 favorites for these pieces because they are so opposite and complementary to each other and so perfect anyway in their own rendition of these dances which were the best of Chopin for me and the most precious works for the composer himself....

There is other Music than Piano . This bit is modern and conducted by the composer.https://youtu.be/OnAtvyK6bzY?t=4

This piece confirms , to me at least, his greatness . Sadly Sir Peter is no longer with us .
https://youtu.be/zpJB-XXE9Xg?t=2

@maghister  Re Barbosa, I have listened to his recordings of the Mazurkas and I really enjoyed them .His rubatos are beautiful and unhurried with a superb technique. I did know of him because he was a pupil of Arrau’s but sad to say I had never looked up any of his recordings so a big thank you for putting his name my way.

Here's an instrumentalist whom I hadn't heard before: Hille Perl.  To me she sounds like stiff competition to Jordi Savall et al. on the viola da gamba.  The Schenck CD is excellent, with superb sound and impassioned playing. I have immediately ordered two more of hers.

I’m so happy his time has finally arrived.

You are not wrong there RV as I also think he was a phenomenon of which sad to say I do not think we shall see the likes of again. He left us a whole treasury of works which are unique and in so many forms. I particularly love his Corelli Variations especially played by Mikhail Pletnev on Rachmaninov's own Steinway in his villa, a truly wonderful recording.
Other works of his I love are his piano pieces Op.23 and Op.32 and those two together give us a full 24 preludes in all the keys, and the variety is fascinating. When I have listened to him play his own works on recordings I think what a crying shame hearing this horribly diistorted and hissy sound when everyone now can listen to any modern pianist with superb digital sound. 

I’m  listening to a work of incomparable genius: Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and just had to write about it.
Some of the most brilliant variation writing existent.

Speaking of Kondrashin, I believe he is one of the great conductors of the 20th century and somewhat underrated.  He was superb not only in Russian music.  His Mahler performances, especially the 9th Symphony, are truly admirable.

The Woman Who Built Beethoven’s Pianos

Nannette Streicher has been marginalized by history, but she was one of Europe’s finest keyboard manufacturers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/06/arts/music/beethoven-piano.html

I have always enjoyed Karajan with the Vienna Philharmonic and although maybe a bit lush for some I think he would be a perfect foil for Kondrashin.

Listening to Kondrashin's Dvorak 9 for a first time on my improved system, and what an exciting recording it is.  Superb dynamics!  The tympani strokes in the first movement made me jump. I would never have guessed the recording's age. All cobwebs firmly blown away.  Dvorak reenergized.

All that said, anyone care to recommend a complementary more relaxed, "romantic" reading, with a suitably delicious slow movement?  I'd like to have both.

Me too!

RV    I am in total accordance with you regarding Trifonov  , he really has a lot of musical growing to do. He reminds me of Michelangeli  and Pollini who were capable of playing anything but cold as ice. No for me he needs a couple of decades under his belt , alas too late for me I fear.

Chopin Mazurkas by Antonio Barbosa is the most astoundingly rythmically accurate and "dancing" version for me  of these pieces that Chopin wrote for all his short live.....

AshkenazyI have heard his 1966 Diabelli Variations, but not the new recording.Now listening to his "Rare First Recordings 1955" which is a bonus
part of "The Solo Recordings on DG & Westminister 40CD"He must have been 13 years old, looks so young in the cover picture.I love his music, and I appreciate what he did with Edward Said in Israel.

Jim,

I haven’t listened to Martha’s Chopin Mazurkas yet, but I will and let you know my impressions.
I actually do agree with Rubinstein’s observations about how fast she plays. At times it’s a little disconcerting and interferes with the natural flow of the music.
However, she’s an extraordinary talent and, at her best, is unparalleled.
Speaking of pianists, I’m just now listening to a new album by Daniel Trifonov containing Russian composers called “Silver Age” (available on Idagio.)
Again, as we’ve discussed before, aside from his formidable technique, I just don’t find him very interesting, despite all the hullabaloo.

@rvpiano          I totally agree RV about the two of them especially Barenboim I just don't know where he gets the time or energy for all the things he is involved with. The two of them have gone into now their late seventies with their techniques intact, in fact I would put Argerich as possibly in the top three pianists before the public today. Her Schumann is mercurial and so quirky that it is totally unique to her. I have enjoyed her playing for as long as I can remember. I still remember her EMI releases from the sixties and although they were very expensive at the time I couldn't wait till I had enough money to go and catch another one of her Chopin releases. What do you think of her Mazurkas, to me they are superbly played with not a note out of place ( do remember Michaelangeli had a hand in forging her technical aparatus ) she is one of the greatest pianists ever. I always remember a passage in a book about Barenboim when he was dining with Arthur Rubinstein one afternoon. Afterwards they went out on to the veranda for a cigar. as they were enjoying their smoke the talk as always went to pianists. Martha's name came up and after a little while Rubinstein looked straight at Barenboim and said she was one of the  supreme pianists of the age but why did she have to play so fast. Barenboim looked him in the eye and said "because she can Arthur because she can" and with that they fell back to their cigars.

Jim,

Yes, I listened to that performance a while ago and was similarly impressed.
At his age, like his compatriot, Martha Argerich, he seems to have lost nothing in technique.  What a musical genius!  He conducts even the most complicated scores from memory.
What is there in the water in Argentina?

I have just finished listening to Barenboim playing the Diabelli Variations and must say I have on the whole enjoyed it. How he can keep this kind of work at his age and especially live at that is incredible. After a shaky start he then bowls headlong into them and on the whole I think it is a great achievement. If I had to pick anyone who he resembles playing them it has to be a lot of Arrau and a little of Kovacevitch. Not that he copies them though but more resembles, in his youth he revered Arrau and and Arrau liked him and his playing . His interpretation is quite slowish but not drastically so, he just lets the music breathe so to speak .
In the faster variations he dives straight in and takes no prisoners and the great thing about late Beethoven is that the music doesn't sound too clean as per Beethoven's instructions to Schindler. Arrau was a great proponent of the musical slurs in Beethoven's late works which he also suggested to his pupils and I'm quite sure Barenboim also as his playing does resemble Arrau a lot.
Anyway if you give it a spin so to speak it is on Qobus at the moment and I'm quite sure the others will have it also . The recorded quality is superb also so that should be a bonus.

Mr. Jarrett, 75, broke the silence, plainly stating what happened to him: a stroke in late February 2018, followed by another one that May. It is unlikely he will ever perform in public again.

“I was paralyzed,” he told The New York Times, speaking by phone from his home in northwest New Jersey. “My left side is still partially paralyzed. I’m able to try to walk with a cane, but it took a long time for that, took a year or more. And I’m not getting around this house at all, really.”

When he tried to play some familiar bebop tunes in his home studio recently, he discovered he had forgotten them.

“I don’t know what my future is supposed to be,” he added. “I don’t feel right now like I’m a pianist. That’s all I can say about that.”

“But when I hear two-handed piano music, it’s very frustrating, in a physical way. If I even hear Schubert, or something played softly, that’s enough for me. Because I know that I couldn’t do that. And I’m not expected to recover that. The most I’m expected to recover in my left hand is possibly the ability to hold a cup in it. So it’s not a ‘shoot the piano player’ thing. It’s: I already got shot. Ah-ha-ha-ha.”

“I can only play with my right hand, and it’s not convincing me anymore,” Mr. Jarrett said. “I even have dreams where I am as messed up as I really am — so I’ve found myself trying to play in my dreams, but it’s just like real life.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/arts/music/keith-jarrett-piano.html

A great Bartok Concerto for viola that you are unlike to hear live in US .

https://youtu.be/yfpCCJqu4Ts?t=2