Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #11)

That is the good thing with Chopin. Most competent recitals are at least charming; but if you really like the stuff performed on that twofer you must buy more of the same to hear how good these can really sound..

Preludes from Sokolove for examples and Etudes by Polllini on DG Nocturnes by Sarasewicz or Angela Hewitt on hyperion , Waltzes by Ingrid Fliter and Ballads by Evgeny Kissin, Piano Convertios by Martha Argerich and some Chopin compilations by Rubinstein, Zimmerman or Cortot will all bring you lots of joy and are worth every penny.

A sensational overview is Evgeny Kissin's close to perfect collected set for RCA Red Seal 5 of his extremely successful CD's in a set for 16,90 ! . You can get 11 A. Rubinstein CD's for 19.95 and so on.
No need to raid just the used bins..

The Carnegy Hall Concert twofer is a stunner and also in that cheap set...Plus the best Ballades CD I know of Chopin's best hidden secrets...

Some deadly safe Chopin sets I love to pieces ... my top 5 if you like...

shown below

 

The Chopin Nocturnes set by Maria Joao Pires is excellent. Angela Hewitt is best known for her Bach keyboard works but I have no clue how she is with Chopin works. Evgeny Kissin has been known for his inconsistencies. I know next to nothing about Ingrid Fliter ...

 

Now playing this SACD from my PentaTone collection ...

 

This is piano art at it's most crucial. I am always perplex how Polini manages that with only two hands (and his nose I guess. LOL.. and duck gor cover - bad joke..)
Best of all the music is always steady , tight and with a nice flow. Bet that 55 CD set has a lot more waiting to be discoveedr.. what a legacy and bet of all even the real old stuff sounds at east reasonable - this etudes cd sound fresh as if recorded last week.

In my top 3 Chopin rankings close to the number one spot but that is still reserved for Kisin (Ballads or the Carnegy Hall excerpts - beginning of CD 2 is killer !)

 

Although she concertizes these salon works a bit too much, I still enjoy Pires's set for early evening listening. Great sound, too.

The Nocturnes have been blessed with some lovely readings, starting all the way back in the thirties with Rubinstein's first set.This one is my favorite of his three and it was lovingly transferred by Marston for the monster Rubinstein box. Later came my favorite, Arrau. Some find it indulgent and ponderous, but I love it to death. Later still came Moravec, Tipo and Wasowski. Those last two are excellent performances and should satisfy anyone picky about sound. Unfortunately they are both OOP.

 

Next to play, my all-time favorite version of Bach Schübler Chorales ...

 

A big omission. Those waltzes are superb ! Light with lots of grace and techniques, but most of all a rhythmic approach you hardly ever find within any classical piano player from say russia england or other europena origin. She's from Bunos Aires...and the tango and mazurka are somehow not that much different as dance musical genres. But don't reduce her playing to just rhy hm and nice easy tone.
She is a serious piano talent since her childhood and now she is in her late 30ies...
Kissin and the piano is a match made in heaven. Technically and from the way he makes the piono sound like a 'Stalin organ' if necessary to the most etheral subtleties is unique. A child that sings Bach chorals at the age if 2 and plays the fugues with 4 is not your average guy and somehow Chopin is dear to his heart and you could say he might get carried away and play twice as much notes as are on the sheet one evening (I guess that is what you mean by 'inconsistency" - never read that in a professional review outside of amazon reviews or certain journalists. Definitely not from other artists or music managers label heads or concert agencies.
His shows are always sold out and a huge success. Simply said - He comes first like Maradonna or Pèle in soccer at their time frames, The rest is there to compete who is number two and three etc. ) He is not the guy who will always sound the same on every occasion. He wabts more from himself. Akled in an interview on ARTE TV after he played as the guest of honor for Chopins 150th birthday in Warszaw a few months ago "how comes you play the sonata x now in 45 minutes, while you played it on your first record in 28 minutes ?" - "Well by now I have a lot more to say..." ...That's the spirit I like.. The night he conquered New York at The Carnegy Hall in 1989 was a triumph and that is the recording I am talking about .
After the first section on CD 2 you hear the crowd go berserk in the open and scream BRAVO !!! on open stage. That is not your average Chopin evening... Same goes for his first night at The Royal Albert Hal. Till today no other artist gathered more curtains and that is the only currency that exists in classical music, theatre or opera..
The Ballades are also from another star. Simply spellbinding http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Frederic-Chopin-Balladen-Nr-1-4/hnum/9744417
Plus a fine fantasy live concert from germany. All that and another CD which is average in that special collection of superiority - for 16.95 - This is a set you should add to your shopping list immediately...

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Frederic-Chopin-Kissin-plays-Chopin/hnum/1835717

BTWis that the same Nocturnes by Pires that is also on the DG 111 years of excellence 55 CD Set ? Angela Hewitt's Chopin Nocturnes grow with every listen, but the one you got too is betterimo (Harsewicz on Phillips DUO)

 

Now playing CD3 from this set - Triosonatas by Peter Hurford, Vol. 2 of 5. At 3 CD's per volume, those sets were not easy to collect ...

 

More organ works - now playing this CD from my Bach collection ...

 

Just placed a small order on mainly early music with Amazon. No big order stateside for a while since 50 CD's are on the way from the other side of the Atlantic ...

 

Now playing this CD ...

 

My fav Chopin hasta be this one....
Richter is very hard to beat for performance.
This one was a Penguin Guide Top Rosette Winner.
VERY reasonably priced I might also ad!!

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Regis/RRC1199



But a VERY CLOSE 2nd is this one I bought from George P a while back......
We had a big discussion about Chpin at the time and He recommended this one as being one of His favs.
He just happened to have a extra copy up for grabs and He twisted my ear!

 

I'm really enjoying this box set.

 

George is our piano man!

 

Now playing CD1 from this set, which arrived from MDT last week ...

 

Now playing CD2 from this set, which arrived from MDT last week. As always, Bob van Asperen put in an excellent performance ...

 

Now playing CD3, the last CD from this set. These works are not familiar to me, though I can clearly hear influence of JS Bach on Sonata No. 4 on CD2 ...

 

Just ordered this DVD this morning. Hopefully, the second time will be a charm. The same DVD was ordered late last year but was lost in mail ... ???

 

Now playing this CD by Simon Preston from my Bach collection ...

 

Those two are very good indeed, still not at the absolute top of MY list. It is good thing tastes differ, the only sin is not checking out a real good thing. I can preach till the cows come home and still nobody will ever listen to Ingrid Fliter's Waltzes. My favorite female Chopin recital by 100 miles and running , next are Hewitt + Pires and long behind in the distance right behind Leonskaya and her nice Nocturnes comes Argerich with her pompous Here I Come style...It is all about subtleties and even the young kids Yuya Wang and Alice Sarah Ott knows that.
Okay back in the 60ies her approach was a blessing and like opening a window to let the fresh wind in and that boring salon styled parfumed Chopin pathos out, but today we have better players esp. females. Ingrid has a grace in style and tone I have never heard before and the way she just breathes on the keys sometimes while keeping tat fine groove steady is fabulous.


Enjoying some gracious poano this afterno. First Evh´gey Kissin with Fantasy DoCD and now I am not sure who is actually playing due to the itunes pöaying atm on my mac p and I am on the PC. have to check - it sounds like Chopin to me and by a top league player that's for sure ! Good Golly said Little Miss Molly this i shardcore piano arts..as good as it gets - ah Evgeny Kissin again with CD 1 of Schuberts Fantay a killer CD every paino man should own or at least hear before he dies.. Wonderful..gorgeous..Fantastiqoe

quote "The young Kissin has a phenomenal technique and no inhibitions about displaying it.
Record Review / Michael Tanner, BBC Music Magazine (London) / 01. September 2007

This is an astonishingly generous offering . . . Avid fans of Kissin's extraordinary artistry will want this for the new releases alone, and barring only a rather laboured Tchaikovsky concerto, this is an absolute bargain and a potent reminder of the genius of the teenage Kissin, displaying a perfect balance of consummate musicianship and transcendental technique.
Nicholas Salwey, International Record Review (London) / 01. October 2007

. . . in most of the solo pieces here, a callow Kissin revels in punchy virtuosity at the expense of nuance . . . and flattens the music's graceful flights of lyricism by failing to attend to rhythmic shaping and to variations of tone of voice . . . There are, of course, more than a few exciting outbursts, especially in the more raging passages of the Schubert Fantasy and in the high spirited bluster of the Liszt -- and there are . . . oases of timbral beauty as well . . .
Peter J. Rabinowitz, Fanfare (Tenafly, NJ) / 01. November 2007
”



Franz Schubert / Franz Liszt:
6 Lieder (Transcriptions) *
Auf dem Wasser zu singen, D.774 (Searle 558 No.2)
Der Müller und der Bach, D.795 No.19 (Searle 565 No.2)
Ständchen, D.889 "Horch! Horch! die Lerch im Ätherblau" (Searle 558 No.9)
Gretchen am Spinnrade, D.118 (Searle 558 No.8)
Erlkönig, D.328 (Searle 558 No.4)
Die Forelle, D.550 (Searle 563 No.6)

Franz Schubert:
Fantasy in C major, D.760 (op.15) "Wanderer" *

Johannes Brahms:
Fantasias op.116 *:
1. Capriccio. Presto energico
2. Intermezzo. Andante
3. Capriccio. Allegro passionato
4. Intermezzo. Adagio
5. Intermezzo. Andante con grazia ed intimissimo sentimento
6. Intermezzo. Andantino teneramento
7. Capriccio. Allegro agitato

Franz Liszt:
Hungarian Rhapsody No.12 in C sharp minor, S.244 *

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky:
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.1 in B flat minor, Op.23
Berliner Philharmoniker
Herbert von Karajan
Live recording: Berlin, Philharmonie, 12/1988

Johann Sebastian Bach (arr. Wilhelm Kempff):
Siciliana
(Transcription from Sonata No.2 in E flat major, BWV 1031) *

Ludwig van Beethoven:
Fantasy in C minor for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra, Op.80
RIAS Kammerchor
(Chorus Master: Marcus Creed)
Berliner Philharmoniker
Claudio Abbado
Live recording: Berlin, Schauspielhaus, Grosser Konzertsaal, 12/1991

Christoph Willibald Gluck (arr. Giovanni Sgambati):
Melody
from "Orfeo ed Euridice" (Dance of the Blessed Spirits) *

EVGENY KISSIN, piano

* Recording: Munich, Bavaria Musikstudios, 12/1990"

end of quote

 

While in town today between the Fantasy I found this goodie by Joseoh Haydn's brother Michael.
A Requiem on that audiophile MdG Gold label. Looking forward playing it, since everybody raved that this was as good as the Joseph Haydn stuff.
Anyone in here familiar with this requiem ?

Hope it delivers the praise it got...

 

Now playing CD2 from this set ...

 

Johannette Zomer is a wonderful soprano and I like her very much.

 

Wow, you must be listening to organ pieces by Bach non-stop for days now.

Hardy indeed.

 

OK, OK! I'll try it out.