This recording is on my list of Brahms recordings to get. I look forward to hearing your opinion on it. I just got this today and am looking forward to listening to it: Brahms was a pianist/composer. The versions of his Symphonies that he prepared for two pianos are quite revealing and offer very useful insight into the pieces. The recordings of the piano versions of the symphones on Naxos are worth getting:
disc 3 Bamberg Symphony: The First 70 Years DGG, 2016 01 - (13:13) Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K.491 1. (Allegro) - Wilhelm Kempff, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra & Ferdinand Leitner 02 - (7:05) Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K.491 2. Larghetto - Wilhelm Kempff, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra & Ferdinand Leitner 03 - (10:26) Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K.491 3. (Allegretto) - Wilhelm Kempff, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra & Ferdinand Leitner 04 - (8:49) Mozart: Rondo for Piano and Orchestra in A, K.386 - Carl Seemann, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra & Fritz Lehmann 05 - (7:31) Mozart: Symphony No.40 in G Minor, K.550,1. Molto Allegro - Joseph Keilberth & Bamberg Symphony Orchestra 06 - (8:22) Mozart: Symphony No.40 in G Minor, K.550, 2. Andante - Joseph Keilberth & Bamberg Symphony Orchestra 07 - (4:22) Mozart: Symphony No.40 in G Minor, K.550 3. Menuetto (Allegretto) - Trio - Joseph Keilberth & Bamberg Symphony Orchestra 08 - (5:01) Mozart: Symphony No.40 in G Minor, K.550 4. Finale (Allegro Assai) - Joseph Keilberth & Bamberg Symphony Orchestra
Now playing: William Schuman – Symphony No. 7 — Seattle Symphony – Gerard Schwarz (Naxos American Classics)
He also arranged at least the first piano concerto for 4 hands. There's a nice recording by Claire Aebersold and Ralph Neiweem (names not otherwise familiar to me) on Summit DCD 184.
Emil Gilels (or Emile Guillels as it appears on the Columbia albums) Beethoven: Concerto No. 3 Rachmaninov: Concerto No. 3 Andre Cluytens Paris Conservatoire Orchestra Erato, 2017 recorded 1954 & 1955
I am listening to the new Brahms symphonies by Nelsons and the Boston Symphony now. So far I have listened to the third and fourth symphonies. In my opinion these recordings are a real winner and I would recommend them. Excellent detail and beauty to the playing and sound. Even at high volume the sound quality is great. How is your new Brahms Violin Concerto and Sonata disc?
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. So far I have only had a chance to listen to it once. I have not had time to form an opinion overall but I am dazzled by Gluzman's violin playing. I look forward to a second listen.
Martin Martineau, piano with the nine singers on the cover. Faure: Songs, Vol. 2 Signum, 2017 Martineau is really excellent at the piano.
Disc 8 L'Art de Gendron Decca, 2015 Dvorak: Cello Concerto; Rondo; Le Silence Haydn: Cello Concerto, Op. 104 recorded 1967 Maurice Gendron London Philharmonic Bernard Haitink always loved this performance of the Dvorak with Haitink.
Vernon Handley Royal Philharmonic Bantock: Celtic Symphony; The Witch of Atlas; The Sea Reivers; A Hebridean Symphony Hyperion, 1990 an excellent Tony Faulkner recording
Been revisiting an old friend from my college days: a London LP called "Battle Imperial" by harpsichordist Jonathan Woods. Anybody remember this one? The title piece is by Cabanilles, but I bought it for an exciting account of Soler's "Fandango" that back then got quite a bit of airplay on the old KLEF-FM in Houston--not terribly surprising, I suppose, because Woods was a native Texas son, around that time residing in Dallas after having spent some time in Mexico, among other places, and this was his debut recording. He played what must have been a monster of a harpsichord, built in 1964 by Rutkowski and Robinette of New York, with two manuals; seven pedals; and 16-foot, dual 8-foot, and 4-foot registers in addition to buff and lute stops. Not, I suppose, terribly "authentic," but definitely packed a punch, particularly at the lower end. Woods seems to be another of those discographic one-trick-ponies; I've seen nothing else by him since and can find no trace of him of any substance on the Web outside the recording I already have (image courtesy of Discogs.com). Anybody else, maybe from our Texas wing, know anything about what became of him? He certainly knew how to put a work across, and it's surprising to me he would have vanished so completely.
That harpsichord description reminds me of the pedal harpsichord that Biggs played on this 1966 LP... Specs: Manual I: 16’, 8’, 8’, 4’ Manual II: 8’ Pedal: 16’, 8’, 4' Built by John Challis
Serge Baudo Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Honegger: The Symphonies; Pacific 231; Mouvement symphonique No. 3; Prelude pour la Tempete de Shakespeare Supraphon, 1991 2 cds well-played
Probably more like this one, which also features an onboard 16-foot register but no pedal case (a feature occasionally--or rarely--added for the benefit of organists looking to practice without paying somebody to pump the bellows of the local church organ back in the days before electric blowers): Later, pedal pianos were built for the same reason. Schumann wrote some pieces for that instrument. Anent the Biggs, have you ever heard his two records of Scott Joplin on the pedal hpd.? As he puts it in the notes of one or the other, "The instrument of the salon meets the music of the saloon." Great fun, if not necessarily what one would want as a "primary" recording of that music. [edit] In this Scarlatti recording, Newman, by the by, follows the lead of seemingly most harpsichordists and just about all pianists by ignoring the Kirkpatrick pairings, although if memory serves he accidentally does include the components of one or two pairs, albeit split apart by other sonatas.
Franz Schubert – Sonata in A major D.959 Op. Posth. and Klavierstuck E flat minor D.946/1 — Richard Goode (piano) (Electra/Nonesuch)
Karel Ancerl Dvorak: Symphony No. 6; My Home; Hussite Overture; Carnival Czech Philharmonic Supraphon, 2003
A "pedal piano"... I don't believe I've ever encountered that. Are there any recordings out there? I've not heard Bigg's records of Scott Joplin on pedal harpsichord, but I bet they're a blast. I do have another of his albums with that instrument (below) where he takes on various classical works. I bought this in 1971 and enjoyed it back then... not so much now. The pic is from Discogs (my copy is Columbia, not "CBS"). I don't think anything on that album was meant to be played on harpsichord, so it can be rather jarring to hear these arrangements the first time. The pedal case, though, gives it some much-needed depth. As you advised with the Joplin LP, this is definitely NOT what one would want as a primary recording of any of these works!
I have a couple that at least present the music. One is on organ: Schumann: Four Sketches for Pedal Piano, op. 58. Ellsasser, organ. MGM E3007, 12" mono LP The other is a couple of excerpts from op. 56 played by Adelina de Lara in a big box set on Pearl (students of Clara Schumann). Presumably she played them on a standard piano. Not at home, so can't check what I might have on CD.
OK, home now, and I can add one more recording, but again in transcription: Peter and Annie Frankl perform both sets of studies as 4 hands works in CD set VoxBox3 CD3X 3001. A quick look at Amazon turned up a handful of other recordings by duo pianists and organists but only one actually on the pedal piano. It includes works by other composers as well: I haven't heard it--but I will in due course; I just ordered a used copy from a marketplace seller in Germany.
If I am imagining a pedal piano correctly, it would present (on the pedals) some doubling of the lower octaves of a piano in this separate (foot played) case. If the foot part is played on a second piano, then it would seem that the second player could handle their part entirely with their left hand. All this would likely provide for some rather bass-heavy music! Anyway, I ordered the VoxBox of Schumann's "Complete Works For Piano 4-Hands." A lot of music here I've not heard. Thanks for the tip!
Always glad to spend somebody else's money . By the by, if you want more info, have a look at the Wikipedia article on "pedal piano"--I did earlier and learned quite a bit from it--inter alia that the Saint-Saens 2d pno. cto. started off life as a cto. for pedal pno. and or. The article also has several interesting photos of these rare beasts in their various guises. Pedal piano - Wikipedia
