Classical Music for Aficionados

They told her she was not a Mozart singer ,I imagine Wolfgang Amadeus minded not, !

My 72 LP’s of her is not enough .

Any thoughts on this Qt  on Schubert  ?

Jim 204 said they were great on Haydn and I agree .

@jim5559 

I have found one Schubert disc in what may appear to be a set to come on the CPO label. String Quartets include Rosamunde and Death and the Maiden which are up to their consistently high standards. The dynamics are superb with a lovely rich and well layered sound. I would certainly recommend it. It's on Idagio at the moment. Let me know what you think if you find it.

You caught me , I really don't like  Idagio or the rest of them , no great reason , 

just don't like them . What you said is all I need.

Cheers 

IMO Corelli is at the head of the Great , who cares, in North American at least.

He had influence on two Germans , Bach and Handel, esp. the later..

When I need both rest and energy I often go to Corelli .

The orchestra  is the Slovak Chamber Orchestra out of Prague in 70's and 80's .

More proof  of my cry that the Czechs are the most Classical Music  people in the world .

Vivaldi is very young when he published his sonatas opus 2...

He was very motivated by the Corelli domination of all Italian musical scene..

I imagine him, offering his work with a real but also some " distorted sense of humility" to the older Master.. With the back tought to prove itself to the old master in the Corellian writing style and form itself....

These Vivaldi sonatas are very Corellian inspired one but with the characteristical Vivaldian melodic pulse and rythmical surge though...And some say erroneously that they lack the  depth of the future works to come, they dont lack depth they dont look for depth at all,   here Vivaldi was looking   for a magical SPELL and he succeeded...

I imagine the old master reading them or playing them and thinking about this young man like the future master of all musicians by his seductive spontaneous inspiration , save perhaps Bach or Beethoven or Mozart and very few others to come..

Corelli is great indeed...And the Vivaldi "greek gift" is a testimony to the old master also...But also a treat....These Vivaldian sonatas are a pure masterpiece, never surpassed by other Vivaldian sonatas to come, they are not an imperfect work by a beginner at all, even if vivaldi is 21 years old....These pieces a no less achieved and polished than any of his future best works, they present a cohesive rythmical unity between them that is marvellous...Vivaldi wrote and never work hard save for certain works where he put some hard polishing effort, the "4 seasons" for example and these sonatas i think because he wanted to impress the Corelli roaring lion...

I listened to these sonatas opus 2 near one thousand times, almost each day for more than three years when i was writing ... I know, i know i am a bit too passionate and excessive man in music or in love ... 😁😊

I prefer this old interpretation on conventional modern instruments to the new one with old instruments...

Well, you do have great taste , mahgister !

I need to go back from most present composers because there is a lot of dissonant

and very little consonant .

Only Janacek got over that mountain ,at least to my taste . Of course he was Czech, build into his native tongue .

Basis is Basic .

You can NOT be too passionate when it comes to the greatest feat of the Western World !!

All else in Art is a picture of something else , Classical Music is the thing itself .

I was surprised when a few post back the mention of Sir John Barbrioli's Mahler as it was a series I planed to look into years back after a sample of the 4th from HD Tracks. I received a complete box set offered on Amazon at a great price and I'm smitten by the sound and performance and see why it's the favorite of some. My go to's are Fisher, Tilson , Karajan and Zander's 5th.

Thanks for the nod on this fantastic rendition as no Mahler fan should be without.

Thanks, jdub39 .

HOROWITZ!

https://youtu.be/mJEI4YPqwvo

@rvpiano     A true one off. Incomparable !!

Superb:

Ivan Moravec "Portrait"  11 cd collection

from Beethoven to Janacek

Give me any pianist name that play at the same level or better i will buy his album right now...If i dont already know him ... 😊

Moravec is one of my FEW gods on piano....All his album are TOP artistic playing with none musically underpar with the others...I listen to them all...If he is not the best he is beside the best interpreter of a piece...This pianist is not so well known because probably he is too great to be true...

His color sense is astounding and his mastery of the flowing "hues" unsurpassed save by few other gods....he dont play piano , he is a painter...

Do you want to SEE the "cathedral engloutie" under water?

I was in love with Debussy after listening him....Never before...

When your eye catch what look like a cathedral under water you never forgot it...

I discovered Moravec because of a friend who wanted to cure me at all cost of my Sofronitsky and Nyiregyhazi serious disease for months....He succeeded...I was able at last to listen to another pianist....😁😊

«Only a diamond can replace a diamond»-Lazare Kaplan diamond cutter

listen to it at 4m41s.

I would like to say that Claudio Arrau and Vladimir Horowitz were fully up to and in certain ways passed Moravec with their playing. As far as Arrau is concerned you only have to look on Idagio at the moment and he is playing the 4 Ballades and the 4 Scherzi. which was a stupendous disc when it came out at first. I went through a couple of LPs by constantly playing them. It was so strange for a lot of people to believe that a South American who trained in the Germanic tradition could play Chopin so well. He had a repertoire that ranged from Bach to Schoenberg. His Debussy was beautifully liquid and his rubatos were wonderful. And now of course we have Mr Horowitz who I think got better as he got older and thank goodness he still had a reasonable technique left to give us some wonderful recordings for us to savour. Get your wallet out !!!

Jim

please give a listen to Moravec and Sasa Vectomov (cello) playing Ravel's Habanera.

if you have ever heard anything prettier, please let me know

@jcazador    

Hi Jeremy,

I have looked for the recording you mentioned but cannot find it on Idagio. I have consolidated my streaming now , I have given up Qobuz because of this dammed decision to play music by female composers, before any of you jump on me I have not got it in for female musicians or composers in fact my third favourite pianist is Martha Argerich so I am just saying that I am fed up with each month taken up by lesser musicians so I stopped Qobuz. What I will ay there is a disc with Yuya Wang and a cellist ( forget his name ) doing the rounds and she is playing Rachmaninov and it is really special. I would have a look out for it if I was you as I am sure you will enjoy it . Another very special female musician is Maria Joao P Pires which at the moment I am listening to her Chopin - Piano Concerto No 1, It is absolutely beautiful as is all things from her.

Here is a pianist who is doing the best of Schubert ,

which is to say the best . Never heard her but she is up to it and in to it!

Hmm, she seems to do""lesser Composers ""as well .

As she is with a band I love guess it’s OK .

Jim

I am with you Re Maria Joao Pires, especially love her Chopin Nocturnes.

Also appreciate Yuja Wang's piano, but so not much her clothes (or lack thereof).

The recording of Moravec/Vectomov is on cd #10 of that compilation entitled "Portrait".

more on Moravec (including his refusal to accept Szell's interpretation of Beethoven) here

https://www.naxos.com/person/Ivan_Moravec/8428.htm

@jim5559 

Have a listen on You tube to Khatia playing the Schubert / Liszt Standchen and before you blast the head of me Liszt only arranged it and what a wonderful job he made of it. Give it a shot she makes a beautiful job of it. Jim.

@jcazador 

Jeremy, that was a really good article on Moravec I really enjoyed it. It shows you the power that some high flying conductors really had, they could destroy a career at the stroke of a pen. I am glad he kept his integrity intact. He really was a superb pianist and yes I do love his Chopin Nocturnes ( Up there with Arrau and Pires for me ). Take care , Jim.

PS I am listening to James Ehnes's take on The Sonatas and Partita's for solo violin By my hero , JS Bach, absolutely divine.

@jim5559 

I think as you do he was a truly great conductor.

I see three posts have been deleted , wonder what that was about.

I have a stunning new recording for you to listen to , it's Brahms Piano Works By, Alexandre Kantorow.

Stunning BIS recording and playing from Kantorow.

The 4 Ballades Op 10.

Sonata No 3 in F Minor

Chaconne from Bach's D Minor arranged for Left hand. This one has been popular lately as none other than Triffonov has laid his hand on it lately ( pun intended )

It really is a special recording probably in reflective mode.

Yes, Kantorow is a wonderful pianist. And he is beautifully served by the engineers. For a real trip, try his À la Russe album. His rendering of the Stravinsky Firebird Danse Infernale reduction will explode inside your speakers.

And, by the way he plays a Yamaha, at least on that recording.

@melm734       I Have just purchased the download of Kantorow  A la Russe and I shall listen later on when I can get some peace, will let you know later.

Hillary Hahn is the best the USA has .

This small German group does it best in Germany’s most blue- collar city playing

God’s best .

@jim204 I thought you preferred the Kissin version to Khatia. For me it's pretty much a dead heat, though Kissin is really excellent.  Khatia's whole Schubert CD where the Schubert/Liszt appears as a kind of encore is really really good.

(BTW, tonight, Ott's Chopin Waltzes in the CDP, nice but not transcendent.)

@twoleftears      Yes I do prefer Kissin playing that one , his phrasing is better and also Horowitz makes a lovely job of it.

Zlata Chochieva, Chopin Etudes: some splendid pianism here.  The one slightly disconcerting thing is the recorded sound, which is very good but rather more forward in the soundstage than I am used to.

@twoleftears    At the moment I am listening to Chochieva.  Playing The Chopin Etudes the thought comes back to me from the three book anthology by Prof. Alan Walker on the life and times of Franz Liszt. where Liszt is in Chopin's apartments and Chopin is at his writing desk listening to Liszt and trying to write to a friend at the same time. He actually wrote that at that moment in time he did not know what he was writing as Liszt was playing thorough his Op.10 etudes and all he was thinking was how he could steal Liszt's way of playing his Etudes as he was totally astonished by it . He had dedicated his Op.10 to Liszt, no wonder Schumann called him Klaviator Maximus . I digress so back to my point of the recording I think this young woman has an astonishing technique and people listening to her playing these Etudes must exhibit the same astonishment at her keyboard prowess. I think she has a lot to say in the near future so I will keep my ears primed. The only quibble I have it is too closely recorded for me. I like a wee bit more air around the instrument.

@jim5559      I see you have posted a recording of one of my favourite harpsichordists and organists not forgetting conductors and pioneers of searly music playing. I shall look forward to listening to it tomorrow.

Thanks, Jim .

As far as my non-musician ears will take me , the Toccatas with Pinnock are Perfect !

Khatia’s playing reminds me of Uchida’s lyrical interpretation of Schubert. 

A veritable cornucopia of delights today, I see I am going to be busy.