Classical Music for Aficionados

Jim,

Thank you for your kind thoughts.

Thankfully, The unspeakable pain is gone, just normal pain.
And, I’m starting to walk without too much difficulty.

Sorry I didn’t respond to you sooner. I just read your post

wishing you the best RV
solace in music

watching a video of Verbier Festival
so many fine performances
especially noteworthy is a Rachmaninoff suite for 2 pianos played by
Basayev and Trifonov, maybe it is from Symphonic Dances
Trifonov has his jacket sleeves rolled up, Basayev ditched the necktie
and they are both entranced!

Thank you, jcazador.

After listening to a lot of Chopin and Liszt recently, I thought I'd return to Schumann.

As if today:
Perahia, Op. 6 & 12
Schiff, Op. 2, 18 & 20
John Bingham, Op. 13 & 17
Arrau, Op. 9, 15 & 82.

So far enjoying the Arrau the most.  Any recommendations for a knock-your-socks-off Schumann piano recital?

This Schumann by Reine Gianoli will be hard to beat...





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hga9MGCpJXk

For Schumann, try Richter.

i cannot argue against Richter.... :)

sorry meant to put Carnival in but it consists of Arrau playing kinderzenen and carnival .

Yes, that's the Arrau disk I have.  Lupu will be up later today.

Now listening to Sofronitsky
Concert Recordings CHOPIN / DEBUSSY / LISZT / MOZART 
It is enough to make me weep
https://www.amazon.com/Vladimir-Sofronitsky-Concert-Recordings-DVD/dp/B01B2W7U3O

One of the greatest discovery of my life is Sofronitsky playing Scriabin...

His playing is like a seven-breasted vessel filled with bubbling lava....He says so.....And i listen to that....

Vladimir Sofronitzky Edition

Vladimir Sofronitzky (piano)

rec. 1946-60

BRILLIANT CLASSICS 8975 [9 CDs includes 2 cds of Scriabinhttp://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2009/June09/Sofronitzky_brilliant8975.htm

also
this cd includes some Scriabin, but mostly other composers
https://www.amazon.com/Vladimir-Sofronitsky-Scriabin-Museum-Vol-10/dp/B00D3JOOGQ

His daughter Viviana is also a pianist.  I wonder how much of the genius carried over.

In other news, Lupu in Schumann / Humoreske, Kinderszenen and Kreisleriana is the best I've heard so far; his touch and the sound he gets from the piano seems to match the music perfectly.

Just listening now to the secular cantatas of J.S. Bach.
Delightful!

I just saw a dynamite performance of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto on YouTube. Andre Watts piano. Zubin Mehta and the New York Phil. A true treat.

https://youtu.be/gL-ZkWzeGaY?t=2

Dame Emmy Kirkby and Hogwood are  superb in this music .

Lang Lang has just released a new recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, available on Idagio.  Unexpectedly, it’s not bad. Each variation is repeated imaginatively different the second time around.  The ornamentation is original  and well integrated into the melodic line.  The tone is lovely and the performance does “swing.”  Of course, there is stiff competition in this work, but Lang Lang very well holds his own.

That takes me back to a concert I heard in Brasenose College chapel, when Emma and Hoggers were still an item and relatively known.

RV   I'm very sorry and I am upset that I have to disagree with you but I did not like Lang Lang's Goldbergs at all. I found that the opening aria was so slow it was like a dirge. That said though I have to agree that some of the variations were very good on the ear but I'm afraid the aria is the acid test for me and if too fast or too slow the rest of the piece suffers to me. The Goldbergs to me are so great that it takes a very brave musician to tackle them and it doesn't matter to me as you go further in that if you blow it at the start the piece remains lost. I do very much like Lang Lang in some pieces by Schumann and his favourite Liszt but I don't think you would like to hear them. He certainly has the fingers for Liszt.

Jim, et al
There are so many recordings of the Goldbergs, I cannot get my head around a comparison of them.
Here are some of them:

Hewitt

Tureck

Watcha

Gavrilov

Gould

Jarrett

Feltsman

Perahia

Rana

Sokolov

Nikolayeva

Angelich

Leonhardt

I know there are more somewhere in my hard drives, but that is all that shows up in my search.

So Jim, tell us please, which is your favorite?

Jim,
No reason to be sorry.  i haven’t listened to the Goldberg for a while.  Maybe the beauty of the music influenced my positive reaction

RV   you stated the beauty of the music influenced your reaction and I can totally agree with you there. Lang Lang did really project that in his playing but he made a lot of the movements sound like Chopin Preludes which a lot of people may be happy with but to me way too much pedal on them.


jcazador    Jeremy I have perused your list and there are some stellar names there of which most people would be delighted with and I have fitted that category most of the time also. I currently have two favourites which are poles apart so that lets you know that most interpretations have playing in them that are most enjoyable . My current two are not even on your list that shows just how diverse they are. My first is Andras Schiff 1983 version because you can tell how much he loves playing them and therefor he says goodbye on the aria repeat with a smile . I shall never tire of them and by the way I think technically this version beats the known versions by everyone else.
My next recording is by Ekaterina Dershavina and she gives us a quite literal interpretation  but she has you glued to your seat and you keep saying to yourself "I have never heard this or that detail before" Hers is a voyage of discovery which I love going on regularly.
 Guys have a lovely weekend. Jim.

+1 for Andras Schiff  .

Just received this sad note from a piano dealership that is closing:
Dear Client,
This is very sad news. The flagship piano store in KC for over 100 years is closing. The store that brought Steinway and other great brands to our region is going out of business. You can still buy online, but where can you go to try out a new Steinway, Boston or Kawai grand? This is another major blow to the cultural life of our city.
There were many cultural influences in recent years: the general shift from making our own music to being entertained electronically, the lack of true music education in schools, parents forcing children to choose between sports and music, the general rise of crudity in all art forms, and people who think practicing is too much work.
There were also political influences. The political-economic decisions that brought on the recession of 2008-15 robbed many of our citiizens of their discretionary income. As a result, they stopped buying instruments and paying for private music lessons. This forced Schmitt to cut their store space in half. It forced the closing of the Toon Shop and other music stores.  
The 2020 economic shut-downs and pandemic hysteria have hammered the nails in the coffin. Music and its related businesses were labelled "unessential" for five months. As a result, major orchestras, ballets and opera companies have been irreparably endangered. Chamber music is "virtual." Piano lessons are attempted over the phone.  
Our beloved violin repair expert has closed her business and taken a government job. Luyben Music, the iconic source of classical music since 1947, has shut its riot-cracked and graffitied store. My business was cut by 80%. Indoor vocal worship singing is forbidden. Our leading presidential candidate promises to shut it all down again if scientists advise. No wonder people are afraid to make a major musical investment.
I'm sick of hearing phrases like "in these uncertain times" and "we're all in this together." We're not. The liquor stores, grocery stores, pet-food stores and gun stores are doing well. The music industry is dying. Is a virus really so selective?
Now that my rant is over, if you or someone you know is interested in purchasing a better piano, this is a rare opportunity. If you have been getting-by with a worn-out heirloom or donated piano, here is a chance to honor that legacy with a decent instrument, especially one that carries a warranty.
Ted Horowitz, RPT

 

 

 

 

Jim et al
Thanks for your response.  Yes I love the Schiff recording too.  Somehow it did not show up on my index, but there it is under "Bach Solo Keyboard Works".
I have not heard the Dershavina recording, now searching.

jcazador,

Indeed a sad letter to receive.  It is a sad situation, unfortunately one that started a long time ago.  
And yet, there are so many young people populating orchestras all over the world.

The pandemic just raised the curtain on the shadow dance of the last 60 years   .

Jim
I found the Dershavina recording, thanks for the reference.

My preference, however, is Angela Hewitt.  She is calmer, the melody is prettier. 

Maybe it's just that I am an old man and have heard enough of the Rolling Stones.

@jcazador     Hi Jeremy I had enough of the Rolling Stones the first time they hit the charts, an awful racket . I get you about Hewitt she has a very large following and I do listen to her sometimes. The Goldbergs are great enough for many many interpretations and I now have so many of them I could open up a record shop and make a tidy profit. Thank goodness my music is on hard drives now instead of discs as I was starting to worry in case my floor would subside. 

Jim
Yes indeed, agree.  Hard drives are so much easier to deal with.
BTW
Was Beethoven black?
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/sep/07/beethoven-was-black-why-the-radical-idea-still-has-pow...

Jim, looked   up the Shotts and Dykehead and right you are !Now if they could meld  their pipes and the Field Marshal Montgomery drums ...............

@Schubert        Len right you are about the Shotts boys they had a great pipe band. I used to play in Ayr Pipe band when I was young and Shotts used to win all the trophies in the sixties under the rule of Pipe Major John K McCalister and Drum Major Alex Duthart and they were unbeatable at all the major highland games especially The Cowal Gathering. Then also Duthart's boys regularly used to take the prize for the drum corps home also. Now sadly a lot of those great pipe bands are no longer playing together because they were mostly miners and we know what Thatcher did to mining in the Eighties and we now have no colliery bands and deep coal mines in Scotland now. I know I shouldn't admit to this but I let out a wry smile when in the news they were filming Thatcher's funeral procession going down the Mall in London and there was a deputation of ex miners with a placard that read "ding dong the witch is dead" . Really good that one so don't ever mention Margaret Thatcher in Scotland or you could stand a chance of getting lynched. She is despised up here.

@jcazador Hi Jeremy  I can only describe your snippet as laughable in that if you go back in someone’s past that there may be a black gene floating about somewhere but I am glad that I am of the age now that I don’t care any longer. If you say anything nowadays against it you are instantly pegged as a racist.

Not trying to sound too politically correct, but black or white he was a pretty good composer.

@rvpiano      Yes RV he was not bad in the composing dept.

I am listening at the moment to a series of the Keyboard Partitas by Bach and played on Harpsicord by Trevor Pinnock and most enjoyable they are and he is throwing all kinds of things in like lute stops full double keyboard and single keyboard to add some diversity in the mix. Most recommended.

I saw and heard the witch is dead many times jim .Believe it or not I actually sang it to myself before I heard anything .Looks like an average American need not worry about
being anywhere in Europe for years to come .


I had to cancel my last 2 Lufthansa business class Chicago - Berlin this Oct + December , 250,000 miles worthless .

.To be honest coming from an alcoholic family it is hard for me to be in Scotland , at least they vacinated me from it .I hear you on the Keyboard Partitas with Pinnock , I played them a hundred times till I forgot where I put them. Fun galore !

jim
you say " if you go back in someone’s past that there may be a black gene floating about somewhere "
indeed, you might well find some neanderthals too!

I don't think this is particularly well known, it's a youthful Andras Schiff playing Schumann.  Gesange der Fruhe; Nachtstucke; Kreisleriana; Variationen in Es-dur [forgive lack of diacritics].  On Teldec.  This displaces Lupu as my favorite Schumann recital.  The way he handles the dissonances in Gesange no. 1 is extraordinary.

Good point RV

The pianist Marc-André Hamelin’s new album includes dazzling arrangements of Italian opera by Franz Liszt and Sigismond Thalberg.
Story in NYT includes interview and extracts of recordings.
Another superb new release, on Harmonia Mundi, compiles Liszt’s solo transcriptions of Beethoven’s symphonies. 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/arts/music/marc-andre-hamelin-liszt-thalberg.html

Tracklist
Franz Liszt
Hexaméron, S392
01. Introduction Extremement lent (3:56)
02. Tema Allegro marziale (1:25)
03. Variation I Ben marcato (0:56)
04. Variation II Moderato (2:49)
05. Variation III di bravura - Ritornello (1:20)
06. Variation IV Legato e grazioso (1:23)
07. Variation V Vivo e brillante - Fuocoso molto energico Lento quasi recitativo (3:26)
08. Variation VI Largo - [coda] (2:31)
09. Finale Molto vivace quasi prestissimo (3:05)
Sigismond Thalberg
10. Grande fantaisie sur des motifs de Don Pasquale, Op 67 (14:15)
Franz Liszt
11. Ernani '[Deuxième] Paraphrase de Concert', S432 (7:37)
Sigismond Thalberg
12. Fantaisie sur des thèmes de Moïse, Op 33 (14:57)
Franz Liszt
13. Réminiscences de Norma de Bellini - Grande fantaisie, S394 (17:25)

@jcazador     Johnathan I have just downloaded the hi-rez file of Hamelin's new recording , stupendous jaw dropping playing. If Hamelin's playing is anything to go by then Liszt and Thalberg must also have been as great as what has been written about them.
Great stuff indeed.

agree with you Jim, powerful performance by Hamelin
I am not an opera lover, but I do love those melodies.
Interesting note: Hamelin is broke, had to borrow money, caused of course by the cancellation of live performances.  I am sure his standard of living is a lot more expensive than mine!

I am am Opera Lover because we get the greatest melodies from the
greatest of instruments , the human voice, in that genre .

https://youtu.be/5TUtRRfAOMs?t=3
https://youtu.be/F5q7113ACWA?t=2

The Ultimate in Music by 3 artists touched by God .
I've been to over 2, 000 live classical concerts , only in Opera does the audience
break into tears .

Vive La Difference

In Vino Veritas